jyurich (11/3/2010)
Am I the only one using Microsoft's Entity Data Model (EDM) technology as an ORM for modeling as well as for the data access layer? This is a part of their new Entity Framework model introduced in .NET 3.5 SP1.I can tell you that for years we have both written our own code generation utilities as well as implemented 3rd party variations - and the MS version is by far the most superior from many perspectives.
I highly encourage all of you SQL folks to start becoming very familiar with this, if you are not already.
On a final note, while I don't agree with auto-generating databases, I do agree with standardizing on table structures with basic things like a primary keys, status fields and naming standards.
RAP will not take foothold. Microsoft Entity Framework, however, has the full backing of Microsoft's neverending resources at its disposal 🙂
I think that everyone is hopeful for the EF to be the main ORM for .NET developers. However, compared to several of the other ORMs, it has not matured enough to compete. Other ORM packages also provide different bells/whistles that otherwise would have needed to be completely written from scratch using L2S or EF. Now that can be debated ad nauseam, but I think the bottom line is for developers to feel comfortable with it. I think after another year or so, it will be used more widely.