Frans Bouma on .NET Data Access - Episode 92

Today on the show, Jeffrey Palermo is joined by a long-time colleague of his, Frans Bouma! Frans is the Lead Developer of LLBLGen Pro, a market-leading entity modeling/object-relational mapper for .NET. His specialties are C#, .NET, software engineering and architecture, databases, and data access technologies. He has been writing software professionally since 1994 and is a well-known expert in object-relational mapping, data access technologies, and entity modeling.    In this episode, Frans gives his perspective of 20+ years of experience talking to the database, speaks about the scene of data access in .NET, shares his perspective on life beyond Entity Framework, shares some info regarding his product, LLBLGen Pro, and more.    Frans provides some seriously great information that every developer needs to hear so be sure to tune in!   Topics of Discussion: [:38] Be sure to visit AzureDevOps.Show for past episodes and show notes. [:50] About the recent Microsoft Build Conference and The Azure DevOps Podcast. [1:41] About today’s episode with Frans Bouma! [2:18] Jeffrey welcomes Frans back to the show! [2:25] Frans speaks about his background and journey leading up to what he’s doing right now. [10:00] Fast-forward to today, how would Frans describe the modern scene of data access and .NET? What would he say developers should be thinking about in regards to starting a new application? [13:16] With Frans’ work around the LLBLGen Pro product today, what does he see as the biggest challenges that the industry is facing? [17:36] A word from Azure DevOps Podcast’s sponsor: Clear Measure. [18:01] Jeffrey shares some quick announcements. [19:52] Frans gives his thoughts on the two different styles of object-relational mapping. [23:47] How the infrastructure of databases has changed over the last couple of decades. [26:23] Does Frans prefer identities or GUIDs? [29:06] Frans gives his take on ‘lazy loading.’ [31:20] Regarding stateful applications, what is Frans’ preferred pattern for how long the ORM cash sticks around? How often does he try to recycle it? [33:33] Life beyond Entity Framework Core? Frans provides his advice on when people should be using Entity Framework vs. his product vs. other solutions. [38:10] Frans speaks about his product, LLBLGen Pro, and what type of developer would be interested in it! [41:13] Frans shares his method of choice for peeking at the actual queries that are being run against the database while running his application to make sure that it’s doing what he expects it to do. [43:15] Jeffrey thanks Frans for joining the podcast.   Mentioned in this Episode: Azure DevOps Clear Measure (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! bit.ly/dotnetdevopsebook — Click here to download the .NET DevOps for Azure ebook! Jeffrey Palermo’s Youtube Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! [email protected] — Email Jeffrey for a free 30-point DevOps inspection (regularly priced at $5000!) — Spaces are limited! Frans Bouma’s LinkedInFrans Bouma’s Twitter LLBLGen Pro   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.