LINQ support

http://www.llblgen.com/defaultgeneric.aspx

I was wondering how codesmith compares to the new features in llblgen  with attention to the strong feature support of VS2008/ 3.5

Since the industry move is towards WFF for the biz layer and LINQ for the data layer in 3.5 how close behind is Codesmith?

Codesmith is great for the 2.0 feature set along with the addition on nHibernate and Spring, but that is still  VS2005 and so no point in upgrading to the  3.5 Feature Set.

This then is just using VS2008 as a better UI that VS2005 but more memory hungry.

So what plans do you have for 3.5(extensions) feature support.

We are embracing the LINQ world.  We already have templates for LINQ to SQL that go far above and beyond what the LINQ to SQL designer gives you.  We are also working on Entity Framework templates as well as updating the NHibernate templates.

You can find the latest version of templates here:

http://code.google.com/p/codesmith/

Here are my thoughts about this from a Nettiers perspective.....and as such, alot of this is always open for discussion...nettiers is a community project!: 

Here is some Nettiers discussion around Linq and where it fits within that framework.  I think it will outline some of the obstacles we would have to overcome with Nettiers to use it.  Currently, you can use Linq to query in memory Lists created from Nettiers, we just probably wouldn't support Linq to Sql anytime soon or the Entity Framework.  The post will explain.

http://community.codesmithtools.com/forums/p/8295/30576.aspx#30576

If Nettiers were to use WWF, we would probably replace the functionality currently in the Workflow Pipeline, or allow you to chose which method gets created....they could possible live side by side...see the docs that explains the Workflow pipeline: http://www.nettiers.com/ComponentLayer.ashx#Workflow_Pipeline:_12 

Also, WWF sits on top of Nettiers.  If you wanted to use WorkFlow for your business layer, you should be able to do that now.  Your workflows would be calling the nettiers service layer / data layer code, similar to the idea that nettiers uses with the above Processors.  You have to define the Work Flows, we can't generate those for you.  We don't know your business, we just know your data model.  Again, Nettiers at it's core is an ORM, which creates your Entities and the DataLayer for you.  We try and provide some plumbing for you to use things like WWF, but Nettiers is still an ORM at heart.  I am by no means an expert in WWF, so not sure if Nettiers could generate some typed Work Flow processes and then allow you to extend them.  Just not sure where it would fit into a "generation" perspective.....my gut tells me you will have to define them.

WCF is on the short list for Nettiers.  As the team gets ramped up and a good Roadmap set, this will come fairly quickly I would assume.

Have any questions about any of this....don't hesitate to ask.

jeff