Any thoughts on DevExpress XPO ORM Package?
XPO is the object relational mapper of choice at my company. Any thoughts on the pros and cons?
I was just looking for general feeling and anecdotes about the product. We are not switching to XPO. We are just getting rid of hard coded sql strings living in the app and moving completely to ORM for all data access.
Answer
Others will probably pitch in with technical answers (e.g. the query syntax, use of caching, ease or otherwise of mapping to an existing database structure) -- but if you have an established ORM layer the answer is probably
"Why change"?
I've used XPO successfully for years in an established commercial product with several hundred users. I find that it's fast, flexible and does the job. I don't see any need to change at the moment, as our data volumes aren't particularly large and the foibles (caching, mostly) are things we can work around.
If I were starting afresh I'd definitely look at both NHibernate and the ADO.NET Entity Framework. In practice, though, all are good; I'd most likely look at the commercial situation for the project ahead of the technical questions.
For instance, NHibernate is open-source -- is there a viable community there to support the tool and to provide (if necessary) commercial support?
XPO comes from a tools vendor, are they likely to remain in business for the lifetime of the product?
ADO.NET Entity Framework comes from Microsoft, who are notorious for changing database technologies more often then Larry fills his fighter with jet fuel -- will this, too, fade away?