FluentData is a new introduction to the micro-ORM family that aims to be more straightforward to use than full ORMs. Introduced this month, it uses a fluent API and supports SQL Server, SQL Azure, Oracle, and MySQL.
According to the creator of FluentData, Lars-Erik Kindblad:
The existing ORMs frameworks on the market such as Entity Framework and NHibernate are overly complex and difficult to learn. The generated SQL from those frameworks are poor due their own abstracted query language and mapping from the database to .NET objects is difficult.FluentData takes a different approach by being a lightweight framework with a simple fluent API that is easy to learn.
Similar to other micro-ORMS, such as Dapper and Massive, FluentData focuses on performance and ease of use, and allows developers to have greater control of SQL rather than relying on the ORM to generate it automatically. It uses SQL to perform selects, inserts, and updates, and also supports the use of stored procedures and transactions. According to the documentation, it can work with any business objects without changes to the existing structure.
Other features of FluentData include:
- Multiple Result Set: return multiple data sets with a single database hit
- Developers can use either strongly-typed or dynamic objects
- Custom Entity Factory for complex objects that require special actions during their creation
- Ability to add support for other databases
FluentData requires .NET 4.0, and supports SQL Server, SQL Azure, SQL Server Compact, and Oracle and MySQL using .NET drivers. For further information, code samples and a free download, visit FluentData on CodePlex.