Recommendation for Catnap & inheriting from IEntity

[JDuPreez]

Hi,

I stumbled on Catnap & it looks like a very promising project. From what I understand at this stage (which is very little) I think it suits my needs for MonoTouch perfectly. However, I have to say I really don't like the idea that it forces my objects to implement from IEntity. Ideally what I'm looking for is a framework that can do my dataacces & mapping, completely separate from my domain entities. I don't want to be forced to implement data access specifics in my domain entities.

Just a general thought/idea.

Thanks for the work you've done so far. I think I'm going to give the project a spin on MonoTouch.

[Tim Scott]

Hi,

I'm glad that you like Catnap.  I have been using it for some time in my two MonoTouch apps, and it meets my needs quite well.

Regarding IEntity, I understand your point.  When I developed Catnap I knew that I did not want an ActiveRecord type of pattern where entities must derive from a heavy concrete base class.  From there I was faced with a tradeoff between a very small dependency (a very light interface) and good bit more complex implementation.  So I chose the former. I am very much open to breaking this dependency if it could be done with minimal impact on backward compatibility.  That said, it's probably not something that I will personally take on in the near future.  If you are interested in pursuing that I would welcome the contribution.

By the way, I recently used Catnap for a Windows native client with an embedded SQLite database, and it works quite nicely for that too!

Tim Scott

[JDuPreez]

Hi Tim,

True, I can see that completely avoiding a lightweight 'dependency', can make matters more complicated, so it's probably a fair trade-off.

Thanks for the framework really appreciate it.