I was wondering if using datasets/adapters/datatables is a good way to manage my data access layer, or if I should keeping using this generic database library one of my friend wrote.

Thanks,

John

All depends, datasets are like BD in memory, but construct it is quite long. You should use datareaders for readonly data. It should improve performance drastically.

Perhaps you could consider nhibernate or something, just to put more doubts :)

Well, since I don't know anything about the "generic database library" your friend wrote - I can't comment about it

I am in complete agreement with Arnon.

Another important part of the decision should be based around the skill set of the development team. If your development team is not strong with OOAD then DDD is probably the wrong way to go. Let me tell you there is NOTHING worse than a poorly implemented domain model :D

Requirements also go a long way towards choosing an approach ... If this is code is for a small system ... often times the problems DDD helps solve are not too big of a deal (i.e. code duplication) if you only have 3000 lines of code total and could redo the entire app in a week or two ... isolating yourself from change is probably not a very good investment (chances are the application will never become a maintenance nightmare, and if it does it can simply be re-written.

Often times delivery schedules have alot to do with the choice as well ...

Cheers,

Greg

The decision should most likely be determined by the type of application you are building, and where it will run.

DataSet (in addition to scalar types; int string etc) would be an appropriate type to return from a DAL:

1. It is provider neutral, so your could change the underlying provider without affecting the consumer.
2. DataSets works well with quick and dirty solutions where you want to bind UI controls with less work.

PS: DDD is not applicable to DAL. DAL and DDD are two different levels of abstraction. DAL deals with data, DDD deals with data+domain logic.

Thomas

Topmcsd wrote:

PS: DDD is not applicable to DAL. DAL and DDD are two different levels of abstraction. DAL deals with data, DDD deals with data+domain logic.

If you are practicing DDD you would probably want to seperate the Domain object from the data access (Single Resposibility Principle). The DAL is an adaptor that lets you format the Domain object to storage (a.k.a. Hexagonal Architecture)

Arnon