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Can we start creating the model before database schema?
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BenHayat View Drop Down
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Posts: 86 		Post Options Post Options   Quote BenHayat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Can we start creating the model before database schema?
    Posted: 14-Apr-2009 at 2:24pm
Hi;

Is it possible with the help of Devforce and EF, we can create our business model (classes tat will represent tables) and all the code behind for business rules and once the model has been tested and fairly complete, then we can ask the system to create the database structure for us?

If yes, any samples or guidelines how to do this with DevForce for SL?
Thanks!
Best Regards!
..Ben

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http://www.MicroIntelligence.Com
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kimj View Drop Down
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Posts: 1391 		Post Options Post Options   Quote kimj Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Apr-2009 at 10:15pm
Model first development isn't entirely feasible now, although you can mock some of this.  You can manually create an EDM today, using the EDM designer or raw XML, and then create the DevForce domain model as usual.  You can't touch the server - via fetches or saves - but you can work directly with the EntityManager cache, save and load cache to/from isolated storage, and bind to real entities in the UI.  So, you can get pretty far without a database.
 
.NET 4.0, due next year, will include true model first capabilities in the EDM designer, and support DB creation from the model.  Since this is coming relatively soon from Microsoft, we likely won't be including this capability in DevForce.
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BenHayat View Drop Down
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Posts: 86 		Post Options Post Options   Quote BenHayat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Apr-2009 at 10:38pm
Thank you Kim for detail answer; Can't wait for EF2.0.
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..Ben

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philcockfield View Drop Down
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Posts: 19 		Post Options Post Options   Quote philcockfield Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Jun-2009 at 9:51am
Visual Studio 2010 is now out in Beta...and I've been using it to do just what you're describing above with some success.

I'm actually just using VS2010 to do the model-first EF work (construct an EDMX and corresponding DB-SQL creation scripts), targetting .NET 3.5. I'm then going back to 2008 and using those artifacts to do the rest of the development.

This is working out pretty well so far. Damn good timing to get the beta now...I just hate working directly with the DB!

Edited by philcockfield - 07-Jun-2009 at 9:53am
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BenHayat View Drop Down
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Posts: 86 		Post Options Post Options   Quote BenHayat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Jun-2009 at 7:17am
Originally posted by philcockfield

Visual Studio 2010 is now out in Beta...and I've been using it to do just what you're describing above with some success.

I'm actually just using VS2010 to do the model-first EF work (construct an EDMX and corresponding DB-SQL creation scripts), targetting .NET 3.5. I'm then going back to 2008 and using those artifacts to do the rest of the development.

This is working out pretty well so far. Damn good timing to get the beta now...I just hate working directly with the DB!


Hi Phil;

Thanks for the info. Let me ask you this. Do you have control as to when the database gets created?
Secondly, once the database is created and then you make changes to the model, will it update your database with the changes?

Thanks!
Best Regards!
..Ben

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http://www.MicroIntelligence.Com
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philcockfield View Drop Down
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Posts: 19 		Post Options Post Options   Quote philcockfield Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Jun-2009 at 1:23pm
Hi Ben,

At this stage it constructs a script of SQL for creating the DB tables that you have to manually run against the DB. Auto generation of the tables from VS2010 will be linked up in the final release bits, although I imagine you'd have the option to bypass that, and run the script manually whenever you please.

However, the more interesting issue you point out, is one I don't have an answer for yet...but I'm poking around trying to understand. Incremental updates to the DB, once in place, isn't there yet (to my knowledge at least) but I'm figuring something must be done in the tooling to enable this, as there is always day 2 after you release verrsion 1.

Edited by philcockfield - 08-Jun-2009 at 1:24pm
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jsobell View Drop Down
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Posts: 80 		Post Options Post Options   Quote jsobell Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Jun-2009 at 2:20am
My experience of the model-first approach to development is that it slightly sucks.  The reality of anything but the simplest application is that you have to take security and performance into consideration simultaneously, and unfortunately your database is responsible for that in almost all applications.
An existing example of this approach is DevExpress "Persistent Objects", and we looked at this for some time to see if the theory held true that "You don't care how it's saved, just that it is".  Well the theory does hold true, but unfortunately you also care how it's retrieved, and this is where the whole concept fails.  Query efficiency is almost impossible to predict unless you start tampering with the underlying database, and you eventually end up creating and tuning your database independently of the objects, so you might as well have developed the database in an ER tool in the first place!
I'm sure there are lots of situations where it's ideal - blogs, demos, simple persistence tasks such as settings storage etc, but for anything with any amount of relational data it completely missed the mark for us.
Note that I purchased the enterprise version of their component library to test this out, so it's not just a pontification.
I suspect it may be implemented in VS2010 because the concept will sit well with cloud products like Azure and will undoubtedly look wonderful in MS demos, just like all those "ASP.Net Web Blog app with no code" demos that I found so inapplicable to the real world :)

Jason
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Posts: 1 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Ariannareema Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Nov-2009 at 1:53am
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