Doesn't Linq to SQL miss the point? Aren't ORM-mappers (SubSonic, etc.) sub-optimal solutions?

Question

I\'d like the community\'s take on some thoughts I\'ve had about Linq to Sql and other ORM mappers.

I like Linq to Sql and the idea of expressing data access logic (

Answer 1

I have to agree that the outburst of ORM tools largely stems from the annoyance of writing SQL, dealing with whatever DB driver you have to use, internally abstracting between DBs (Oracle vs SQL Server, vs whatever for code reusability), and transforming data types.

Ideal solution? definately not! However, I think this is an iteration in the process of better merging the application with the data store. After all, in most cases, having a DB without an accessing application written in whatever language is practically useless. (would you really ever just install oracle, and expect all employees to work in SQLPlus directly?)

As such, I think the data store and the application are just moving together in a way that the application developer can more easilly interact with the data store.

For .NET in particular, what I'd much rather see instead of Linq is a built in way to map a class definition to an underlying data source to an underlying data store, and have all the plumbing just work.

In other words I could just say "Employee.Name = 'rally25rs';" and the object's property would change, and underneath that it would persist to the data store itself. Just ditch SQL completely instead of going 1/2 way like Linq to SQL does now.

Of course, a solution like that brings up issues with performance, transaction handling, etc.

Maybe the entire concept of programming language and relational database need to be rethought and realigned? At their core, they are completely separate and disjointed entities. Maybe its time to just ditch the "relational sql aware database" and build the next thing, whee executing a line of code would directly operate on the database.