Hello,

First of all let me thank you for your excellent book.

I am used to building asp.net sites using the RAD approach with most of the logic found in the code behind. As a result, this book was both enlightening and shocking to me.

I really love the Agatha's project even though it took some time to understand how everything sticks together. My question is, can I use Linq to Sql instead of NHibernate? If so, does this mean I can avoid having to implement Unit of Work and Query Object since they are automatically provided by Linq to Sql?

On a side note, assuming I am using Linq to Sql, what is the best approach as far as the objects automatically created by the dbml designer are conserned? Should I take advantage of the partial classes or use mappers to convert between them and the domain model's objects?

Thank you very much in advance,
dimitris

May I answer to myself that linq to sql is more than meets the eye at first glance.

I dare say it encapsulates a handful of patterns including unit of work, lazy loading, identity map and also acts as an aggregator.

With use of an appropriate , generic repository it can deliver but it does not fit well with the request-response messaging service design since it automatically provides master <-> details bi-directional collections. Furthermore, POCO model classes are somewhat useless or redundant since partial classes can provide for business logic and validation.

All in all, linq to sql replaces the need to deploy most patterns by hand not only in the data access layer but also in the model and service layers thus making the contents of this book look outdated and this is probably the reason no answer was given to my initial question.