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ORMs and Mapping Requirements

Mark Seemann is not a big fan of Entity Framework:

When I evaluate whether or not to use an ORM in situations like these, the core application logic is my main design driver. As I describe in Code That Fits in Your Head, I usually develop (vertical) feature slices one at a time, utilising an outside-in TDD process, during which I also figure out how to save or retrieve data from persistent storage.

Thus, in systems like these, storage implementation is an artefact of the software architecture. If a relational database is involved, the schema must adhere to the needs of the code; not the other way around.

To be clear, then, this article doesn’t discuss typical CRUD-heavy applications that are mostly forms over relational data, with little or no application logic. If you’re working with such a code base, an ORM might be useful. I can’t really tell, since I last worked with such systems at a time when ORMs didn’t exist.

Read on for a thoughtful argument. The only critique I have is I’d prefer stored procedures over saving SQL queries in the code.

One Comment

  1. George Walkey
    George Walkey 2023-09-21

    when the ORM fans realize their error of existence, performance will again be on the menu

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