If you also subscribe to Chris? feed here at Elegant Code you might have determined that we work for the same organization. We both regularly use Sybase databases, in particular ASA and Ultralite, which, unlike Chris, I can spell correctly :). We?re also both NHibernate users and have been for several years. We have 5 ? 10 production applications using this combination of technologies.
But support in NHibernate for Sybase is not great. The basics work but some of the more advanced features are not implemented at all or are done poorly. Fortunately we have an excellent relationship with our vendor and have had for many years. Earlier this week they contacted me and mentioned that they will be undertaking an effort to improve their support for NHibernate and were looking for some beta testers.
For this effort they can be commended. It?s also telling (and significant) that OR/M usage is becoming mainstream enough for them to consider this effort worthwhile.
Glenn is going to be leading the effort (as he did for the Java version last year). If you want to influence the direction that we go then please tell us what needs to be fixed.
There is an easy way to do it, no? 😉
At work, we are investigating the NHibernate/Sybase combination. You mention “some of the more advanced features are not implemented at all or are done poorly”. What are some of the problems you found?
Many Thanks
In July I posted a new SQL Anywhere NHibernate dialect for SQL Anywhere 11, based on the NHibernate 2.0.1GA distribution (the current one at that point; note that NHibernate 2.1 has now been released). The new dialect supports:
autoincrement columns,
pagination,
mappings to SQL Anywhere data types,
case-insensitive string matching,
SQL Anywhere lock types,
and several other items missing from the skeleton dialect in the NHibernate distribution.