In a previous post I introduced the concept of ORM tools and their high importance in software development projects. Today I want to talk quickly about my favourite ORM tool: LlblgenPro, and explain why it has been one of the best tool I have had the chance to use for quite a long time.
Have you ever been really amazed by reading the marketing material for a product and think: hey this is what I need! Looks like it's doing everything I want/need plus even more things I would not have thought of first, let's get it!
You would then go and download the trial, with the grand hope that you will be simply satisfied, and not once more disappointed by an advertising façade, selling why the product is the best of the world.
So here you are, trial downloaded, and first eliminatory test is how easy or hard the product is to install and first use. Once the first, supposed easy test is pass, then you start using the product. If you are lucky, the first tries are satisfactory and you still find the product very attractive and are ready to go and celebrate this with your friends. If you are really that lucky and don't live in the real world, you never discover any problem with your newly purchase product and live happily ever after.
However sad but true, more common scenario is that you discover one by one, sooner or later, the flaws and problems and bugs that goes with the product. And interestingly or not, this was not sold on the advert. But the thing is that it comes in a bundle: you get the great stuff and the bugs and problems all in one for the same price, how great is that?!
Unfortunately this happens quite a lot, it is very common to have to make compromises and use a tool because it has great features and you need it, accepting all the bugs, design and functional flaws, perhaps lack of flexibility that come with it. Well you still can contact this great support team: they say that they are available to solve your problems, so wanna call them? Ok right: one doesn't loose anything to try, except perhaps patience and hair…
Ok all is not so bad. You have products to absolutely avoid, and products that are better and being a pleasure to use despite of some drawbacks. And you have few tools that are absolutely phenomenal, and Llblgen Pro is IMHO one of these.
I have already used Llblgen Pro on several big size projects for several of my clients. For information I am always using the adapter flavour of the templates and runtime as I am working on large distributed tiered-architectures and need the disconnected pattern for communicating between tiers, throw web services.
So I must say I keep enjoying the fact that I really love this product, and cannot find anything significant to complain about, which is very uncommon. And Frans, where are the bugs? Pretty very well hidden I must say, was looking for them but apparently didn't get any luck: I find the generated code and runtime extremely stable and robust.
Ok what else can I say? Well, installing the product is very easy and nothing to report, using the designer is pretty straightforward too, and using the generated code made very easy too: the generated projects are including all the proper references, are compiling perfectly fine, and you then just need to reference the generated project and runtime support libraries to be ready to map to your relational data in a full object oriented way.
Even more important: re-generating your projects after changes to the database, on existing entities or creating new one is extremely stable and pain-free too. May you add items to your projects, add your custom code, all is re-generated taking very good care of the work you have done before.
Ok you will tell me that changing the database has impacts on all your code, not just you data access and business entities layers. Well, ok, but don't forget we live in a full strongly typed object oriented code now. So may you have broken your code after update of the database and regeneration of the business entities layer, well, you will know it at compilation time and fix it very quickly!
Another very important point for me is the quality of the generated code and of the runtime source code. For such a technical tool one expect very high quality of the code base, and you get it with Lllblgen. When using the generated code or runtime libraries, you never get the impression of a poor design or dirty kind of object oriented, having design inconsistency or suspicious quality issues. No, this is only great clean object oriented code, handsomely designed, I just LOVE IT
What else can I say? Well the development efforts are pretty well sustain in that Llblgen Pro keeps constantly up to date with the newest versions of Microsoft .NET framework when they get shipped. And much better than this I must say: Llblgen Pro really makes the most of new features of the .NET Framework very fast. Example is the very early support of Link (though Link to Llblgen) and Dynamic Data.
Another point is the extra features that are provided out of the box for you, for free. Examples are support for auditing, and security (authorizations). So you have access to points of extensibility for your application just by using the tool. Let's see what new exciting features we get in the future.
What else? Oh yes, support. Llblgen Pro has got the most amazing support service through its forums. You get answers extremely fast to your problems and issues and bug fixes integrated quite fast in subsequent releases. And it is working, they really are there to help you, it is not only sugar to make you buy the product!
I see one bad thing though about the tool…. And it is its name!! Just still haven't really managed to adopt it J Well who cares would you tell me?
Just one thing to be aware of: I am telling a lot of great thing about Llblgen Pro, just be aware that you will have to go through a learning curve before smoothly master the framework. However it is the same with any framework and believe me: it really is worth it. And with the addition of Link to Llblgen, developers knowing Link will have their opportunity to leverage their knowledge and shorten the time needed to master the tool.
Ok enough for now, you can just go to their website to get more information on the tool. And I will write more posts on scenarios in which I am using Llblgen Pro. So go, and try it! And NO, I don't have any shares on the product, just like to tell when there is a tool that deserve attention. And I will dedicate a section in this blog, dedicated to registering interesting and useful tools and framework, as it is one part of the whole "Building Business Oriented Software Solutions" concept.
You can also read my post about Object Relational Mapping (ORM) overview
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