secretGeek.netORM Smackdown!
In case you missed it, there was a very amusing DotNetRocks episode this week, billed as an 'ORM Smackdown' (listen here) between Ted Neward and Orein 'Ayende Rahein' Eini
Here's my summary of some of the points of contention [note that this is in my words, not theirs and i expect i've completely missed the point on most of these ;-) ]...
| Ted Says | Oren Says |
|---|---|
| ORMs require extra round trips | You can always put the ORM layer in the same physical tier as the DB |
| Adding an ORM increases the Impedence Mismatch | ...but it's worth it cause it provides loose coupling. |
| Sprocs can act as loose coupling anyway! | No, not really! |
| Yes really!! | No, not really!! |
| Yes really!!! | No, not really!!! |
| Yes really!!!! | No, not really!!!! |
| Yes really!!!!! | No, not really!!!!! |
| RDBMS neutrality is a premature optimisation | No, not really. |
| Sql Tuning is platform specific | An ORM can have platform specifics tuning |
| Maybe, but the ORM would be a lot of hard work | No it's easy! Try it! |
| I have and i hate it! | I have and I like it! |
| When the ORM changes the schema, the DBA is gonna have a heart attack | DB Schemaing Versioning is fundamentally hard: it's not ORM's fault |
| But ORMs make it worse | No no, they make it better. |
| ORMs put inheritance info into the DB schema. I hate that! | I don't really mind... |
| The db schema is the master! | The object model is the master! |
| An object-database, between the App and the real database might be the way to go! | How about an intermediate ORM controlled database, in between the App and the real database |
| Object-databases -- they're not ready for 'enterprise' yet but when they're ready, they'll be great | Maybe Object Databases are the future. |
Me, I don't get the whole object database thing, I just groan and think nah, I'm not going to start using nHibernate, nor am I going to look for object databases.
I'll use Linq, and I'll keep using CodeSmith. I'll keep using Stored Procedures, and I'll keep working hard and looking around. But ORM, not for me just yet.
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