Code-First or Database-First, how to choose?

Question

Let us suppose we are going to start new project - application that contains some business logic, user interface on ASP.NET, WPF or both of them. We\'d like to use ORM or DA

Answer 1

In most cases it won't matter much. It is more up to personal preference and skill than anything else. Most apps are not going to suffer much either way, use whatever your team is comfortable with. Where the choice really matters it should be obvious which approach to go for.

That said, my personal opinion is that "database first" is generally the safer choice. If the data is in any way important, especially if it is important outside the scope of your particular app, you want to have full control over how it is stored.

"Code first" (implied: leaving the database in the hands of some automatic tool) is in my mind really a shortcut, one you should use when (and only when) you know for sure you can get away with it.