What is the best practice for sending data to the client: POCO or DTO?

Question

I\'m starting a project using EF 4 and POCO.

What is the best practice for sending data to the client ? Should I send the POCO or I should have a DTO instead?

Answer 1

I have a bit different opinion from above opinions. I believe DTO or ViewModel is still needed for out side of the Server Layer. In real world application, there is a few view layer which only need one Domain Object, that is, almost every views need multiple Domain Objects. And all those Domain Objects are wrapped in one DTO or ViewModel Class. This is why I insist DTO or ViewModel is still needed even though they are POCO.