* What kind of software do you mainly develop with NHibernate?
Currently only a Web application for a customer (for trying out NHibernate, a bit risky for a project with a deadline ;-). It seems to be a success, so if better tools are developed, I will start using it in all my future applications (Windows applications)
+ Details about the development & production environments.
I currently use Delphi 2005 (.Net 1.1) for building the business layer, and Visual Studio 2005 (.Net 2.0) for the presentation layer (just for trying out that combination), and it works very well.
I use the NHibernate XML mapping file both in Delphi and Visual Studio, so they share the same mapping.
* How would you qualify these softwares?
- Professional / Commercial
- Highly scalable, performant, secure, reliable, ... Enterprise Application ;)
* NHibernate experiences?
- Why have you selected NHibernate?
The past 10 years I have been waiting for a object mapping framework like this, and now it finally seems to be a reality :-)
- Something you have done that you never thought would be possible / simple
having my less-experinced co-worker develop the presentation layer and big parts of the business layer without having to worry about SQL is a breakthrough for me...
- The features you like / dislike (=> should be improved)
I really like the XML-mapping files because they enable me to share the mapping across the development platforms.
The major feature that I miss is really a mapping tool with the ability to use/import my hand-coded mapping files, and maybe even import a database schema. I looked at ObjectMapper and it only exports code.
If there only were a road-map for these tools, so I could see what efforts is put in this in the future, then I wouldn't worry about that a second, because I can live without it to begin with, but it will really be necessary for my future projects.
I wonder if the Eclipse version of Hibernate Tools could support NHibernate-mapping files and generate C# code?
* About the documentation? (We are currently working hard to improve it...)
- How easy/hard is it to learn using NHibernate?
Quite easy actually. I was inspired by a very comprehensive 40-page article series about using NHibernate in Delphi, which was found in
The Delphi Magazine. Actually it is the best documentation I ever found for NHibernate, could almost be recommended for non-Delphi users :-)
It was a bit tricky to understand how relationships and bags are mapped, but mostly because it was hard to find examples when I started... the forum is a great help!
- What are the parts you would like to see better documented?
Which tools that are available (and working well) with NHibernate. I didn't find the Query Analyzer until 10 weeks after I started.
- What kind of samples / demo applications? With which features?
I love the ASP.NET sample of Benjamin Day, because it is an example of a "real" architecture draft split into separate layers:
http://blog.benday.com/archive/2005/10/25/3054.aspx
Would be really cool with a comprehensive sample like this, with all the "hard core" mapping and tuning tips collected in one demo application.
-and finally. I think you are doing an amazing job with NHibernate, I am looking forward to see what will come in the future !!