This is awesome. I downloaded the trial version, and it seems really quick to just grab the data you want from the db. You just inherit from the Lightspeed class, put the LightSpeed attributes on the fields in your business objects, and it maps them to the db columns automatically. You can also create your own queries using the framework, and the query optimiser is apparently pretty good as well.

Sound just like subsonic..
http://www.mindscape.co.nz/Products/LightSpeed/

"With features like convention-over-configuration"
Since when is that a feature?

Hi Duckie,

Thanks for your comment - LightSpeed differs from SubSonic in many ways, it is not a generator for starters and the approach taken to many aspects of the domain modeling is different overall.

Convention-over-configuration, in my opinion, is a feature given it is so rare to find frameworks that actually have sensible defaults (or defaults at all). By applying conventions rather than requiring developers to understand complex configuration we enable developers to get up and running much faster than they otherwise might - something very similar to what you would find with RoR.

You can download and try LightSpeed and see for yourself what it has to offer to learn more.

Hope that helps,

- John-Daniel

You are right that it is not a code-generator like subsonic, but thats what i like about it. That might be the one thing stopping me from trying your products. You got some nice features i miss in subsonic (to include by default), but i dont really want to go back defining my DAL by hand. I have used different aspects/products to this problem (xml files, using attributes etc.), and having subsonic automatically update everything just makes me happy.

I would really really recommend you look into generating the dataclasses automatically, your product would be 10 times as interesting

Hi Duckie,

I tend to agree that some level of generation would be nice when you are starting out with a domain model and it is something we are thinking about doing. One thing we want to do is ensure that our road map is defined by user demand rather than arbitrarily adding features and hoping people want them so your feedback is important.

One point I would like to make however is that LightSpeed is not simply enabling the creation of DAL. While it does take care of the persistence story it is designed for building rich domain models, not rubber stamped data access. On smaller systems this can sometimes appear to be a non-obvious difference but once your create a rich domain model with behaviors you quickly run into issues with generation - you can spend more time updating your generation scripts than you might just refactoring your domain model (this applies to generation in general, I'm not targeting any specific product here).

With LightSpeed is that there is so little code you actually need to maintain it's sometimes surprising for new user. You literally inherit off a class and create your fields. Then you are effectively done so generation won't be creating all to much for you. Generating even those initial classes could still be useful however, especially for new users of LightSpeed.

Not everybody wants to create a domain model however and in that case, sure, LightSpeed might not be for you. There are no silver bullets :)

Hope that helps,

- John-Daniel