We are pleased to make our ES2009 Q3 Beta available as our Trial version. In fact, this is our only Trial version as we want folks new to EntitySpaces to begin with this version. The production release is scheduled for September 28th, 2009. This trial includes data providers for all of our supported databases. We have listened to your feedback and hopefully have implemented a lot of the requests you have asked for. We will still sneak in some more items from the Q3 Wish List forum before the official release so if you see something we overlooked that you feel is very important let us know on the forums. We really need some our customers to upgrade if you can, if you do, please post on the forums and let us know what things you ran into it that weren’t in our release notes and we will update those quickly.

The EntitySpaces 2009 Q3 release we feel has some of the best support for Silverlight that any ORM has to offer. Our smart proxies are very powerful and make working with WCF services and Silverlight a breeze. Also, our DynamicQuery API is much more powerful in this release. Here is a quick list of features, fixes, and enhancements that are in this release.

The release notes can be found in this PDF file. Although there are some breaking changes with our 0209 Production Release no new breaking changes will be implemented between the Beta and Production release.

• Sybase SQL Anywhere Support Including the Compact Framework
• Excellent Silverlight Support
• A New EntitySpaces.DynamicQuery Assembly which is Silverlight Compliant
• A New EntitySpaces Generic Concurrency Mechanism
• DynamicQuery - The Having Clause is Now Supported
• DynamicQuery - Full Expressions in OrderBy and GroupBy
• DynamicQuery - Daisy Chaining Syntax has been fixed
• DynamicQuery - Supports “Raw SQL” Everywhere
• DynamicQuery - Sub Operator Ordering Fix
• DynamicQuery - Order of Values More Flexible
• DynamicQuery – Serializable in XML (very tiny packets)
• Major Proxy Stub Enhancements (WCF/WebServices/Silverlight) and Compact XML Mode
• Enhanced UserData.xml file (support for multi dabase developers)
• Editing User Metadata Easier Through the .NET Property Grid
• Connection Configuration Information Enhancements (no longer read only, catalog/schema added)
• VistaDB Password Bug Fix
• Microsoft SQL CE “TOP” syntax fixed
• There is now a Twitter toolbar button on the “Whats New” tab
• In the Settings “Other” tab you can control what double-click means for a template.
• In the Settings “Other” tab you can turn off the DateTime stamp in the header.

Of course, there are many other internal changes not listed in the above list. One thing we didn’t get completed but will before the official release is path relative project files, we know this is a very important feature. Also, our WCF demo is not included. We are reworking it for the official release, but all other demo’s are included.

Download the Trial Version HERE.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

We are pleased to make this beta available. This beta includes data providers for all of our supported databases. The Trial Version of the Beta is not yet available. It will be available Monday night/Tuesday morning. We are only planning on having this one beta with the official release being published on September 28th, 2009. We have listened to your feedback and hopefully have implemented a lot of the requests you have asked for. We will still sneak in some more items from the Q3 Wish List forum before the official release so if you see something we overlooked that you feel is very important let us know on the forums. We really need some our customers to upgrade if you can, if you do, please post on the forums and let us know what things you ran into it that weren’t in our release notes and we will update those quickly.

The EntitySpaces 2009 Q3 release we feel has some of the best support for Silverlight that any ORM has to offer. Our smart proxies are very powerful and make working with WCF services and Silverlight a breeze. Also, our DynamicQuery API is much more powerful in this release. Here is a quick list of features, fixes, and enhancements that are in this release.

The release notes can be found in this PDF file. Although there are some breaking changes no new breaking changes will be implemented between the Beta and Production release.

• Sybase SQL Anywhere Support Including the Compact Framework
• Excellent Silverlight Support
• A New EntitySpaces.DynamicQuery Assembly which is Silverlight Compliant
• A New EntitySpaces Generic Concurrency Mechanism
• DynamicQuery - The Having Clause is Now Supported
• DynamicQuery - Full Expressions in OrderBy and GroupBy
• DynamicQuery - Daisy Chaining Syntax has been fixed
• DynamicQuery - Supports “Raw SQL” Everywhere
• DynamicQuery - Sub Operator Ordering Fix
• DynamicQuery - Order of Values More Flexible
• DynamicQuery – Serializable in XML (very tiny packets)
• Major Proxy Stub Enhancements (WCF/WebServices/Silverlight) and Compact XML Mode
• Enhanced UserData.xml file (support for multi dabase developers)
• Editing User Metadata Easier Through the .NET Property Grid
• Connection Configuration Information Enhancements (no longer read only, catalog/schema added)
• VistaDB Password Bug Fix
• Microsoft SQL CE “TOP” syntax fixed
• There is now a Twitter toolbar button on the “Whats New” tab
• In the Settings “Other” tab you can control what double-click means for a template.
• In the Settings “Other” tab you can turn off the DateTime stamp in the header.

Of course, there are many other internal changes not listed in the above list. One thing we didn’t get completed but will before the official release is path relative project files, we know this is a very important feature. Also, our WCF demo is not included. We are reworking it for the official release, but all other demo’s are included.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

There are some very nice connection handling enhancements that will be in this weekends ES2009 Q3 Beta. First, and we know you’ll be thrilled to hear this, all of the information regarding the connection setup, including the connection string itself, is writeable at runtime. This is true even when using a web.config or app.config file, the information is no longer readonly. It is no longer necessary to use the configless approach to be able to modify things on the fly.

Also, you can now set your “schema” and “catalog” information in the Connection Info section as shown below. This will really help out our Oracle users and of course applies to all databases that support schema and catalog information.

<add name="SQLDynamic"
   providerMetadataKey="esDefault"
   sqlAccessType="DynamicSQL"
   provider="EntitySpaces.SqlClientProvider"
   providerClass="DataProvider"
   connectionString="yada yada;"
   databaseVersion="2005"
   schema="dbo"
   catalog="Northwind"
/>

This two changes alone really add a lot of flexibility to the EntitySpaces Connection management area.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

We just wanted to do a quick blog post and let everyone know that so far we are on track for the August 31st release date. We have almost finished adding the EntitySpaces universal concurrency checking code for provider independent programmers. Everything has to go through unit testing again but we’re very close now. This is a big release for us and this is going to be a very busy week for sure. Follow us on Twitter for more timely info ..

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

We have asked the ORMBattle.NET Team to rethink their test suite before we participate. We have not seen our performance numbers, have no idea what they might be as we cannot even compile the ORMBattle.NET solution. We still fully support what they are trying to do and will participate if these things are addressed. We looked at their tests last night and found some issues that we think need to be changed in order to make the tests valid. We were a little disappointed.

• All of the “single” tests are using entire collections to load all of the data in a single fetch? We feel this tests nothing. All of the single tests should read one record at a time, then update/delete/add, then save. This would then appropriately indicate how fast can that ORM solution can work with a single “entity” or record of data. This is the case with most grids which then move to “edit” mode where the entire record needs to be fetched and then saved.
• The use of Transactions is entirely wrong (described below).

Most of the tests, even the tests that test how fast an ORM solution can fetch data through a “Query” do so with a transaction declared and then within the declared transaction fetch the data “n” number of times? Who declares a transaction when they perform their queries? With EntitySpaces this would open a connection and then hold that connection open through the life of the test. Great for us, but this doesn’t test connection pooling nor does it simulate how many times you can do a real query with complete setup and teardown.

Finally, even the tests that perform the single operation of updating a single record (add/edit/delete) do so in a loop within a declared transaction? There is no need to have a transaction declared to get performance numbers on updating a single record. And again, as we have said above, all of the tests that are supposed to be indicating how fast an ORM solution can work with single records are very flawed as they use collections. If an ORM vendor has no single entity that can read/write then they should have to declare a collection each time to load the single row, change it, and then save it using their collection as a single entity.

Some vendors like Open Access don’t even implement the single tests?

protected override void InsertSingleTest(int count)
{
   Log.Error("Not implemented.");
}

protected override void UpdateSingleTest()
{
   Log.Error("Not implemented.");
}

protected override void DeleteSingleTest()
{
   Log.Error("Not implemented.");
}

yet still seem to get a great score in that area?  Even the ORMBattle.NET test results grid lumps everything into DataModification? There should be separate collection and single entity scores. But as the tests stand now there are no real single entity reading / writing tests to even evaluate.

So, in summary, we are asking the ORMBattle.NET Team for real world tests for single entity reading and writing without transactions open (that allow for special optimized tweaks when you open and hold a connection open). The same goes for “Query” testing, these should not be done nested inside a transaction.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

ORMBattle.NET is devoted to direct ORM comparison. This site is actually run by one of the ORM vendors but we still want to take our shot at it.

Vote Here For EntitySpaces to the Next ORM product evaluated ==> ORM BATTLE.NET

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

Things are going great. We now have all of our data providers upgraded and compiling clean, including the Compact Framework providers. We have many users working fine with our Sybase support so we are very pleased on how our Sybase support is being received. This is just a quick post to let you know we have added the Having clause to fill out our DynamicQuery API.

Here is a sample query (this might not make sense as a real query, this was just for testing the syntax, the query did return data however).

EmployeeQuery q = new EmployeeQuery();
q.Select(q.EmployeeID, q.Age.Sum().As("TotalAge"));
q.Where(q.EmployeeID.IsNotNull());
q.GroupBy(q.EmployeeID);
q.Having(q.Age.Sum() > 5);
q.OrderBy(q.EmployeeID.Descending);

EmployeeCollection coll = new EmployeeCollection();
if (coll.Load(q))
{

}

This resulting SQL is shown below:

SELECT [EmployeeID] AS 'EmployeeID',SUM([Age]) AS 'TotalAge'  FROM
[ForeignKeyTest].[dbo].[Employee]
WHERE[EmployeeID] IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY [EmployeeID]
HAVING SUM([Age]) > @Age2
ORDER BY [EmployeeID] DESC

Our DynamicQuery API has such terrific enhancements coming in ES2009 Q3. Also, our release dates have been posted on our Roadmap. Start making your plans today …

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

This information is on our Roadmap page which can be seen HERE.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

We are very excited to announce our Sybase SQL Anywhere support available with this release. We currently support Sybase SQL Anywhere 11 (versions 11.0.0.1490 and 11.0.1.2044). Our assemblies are bound to the 11.0.1.2044 version. However, if you are using the older 11.0.0.1490 version see this post on our forums. Swapping your SQL Anywhere provider version only takes a minute or two. We ship two providers for Sybase, a regular EntitySpaces provider for Sybase network server/personal server, and one for the Compact Framework. Both of these are available in this alpha release. EntitySpaces (the application) is available in two modes; a Visual Studio Add-In which is available from the Visual Studio “Tools” menu and the “stand alone” application available from your EntitySpaces 2009 menu after installation.

Our Sybase support in this initial release is already very rich. We support Sybase autoincrement columns, timestamps for concurrency, and both dynamic and stored procedures modes for updating your Sybase housed data. There is a new template included with this release that will generate your Sybase CRUD stored procedures if you want to use stored procedures for your CRUD operations. This isn’t required however, EntitySpaces can run with or without stored procedures. This is our first release with Sybase support so please let us know via the forums how the Sybase support is working for you. We’ve done a pretty good job of testing and will fix any bugs reported on our forums.

We already have a customer who is going to be writing a Silverlight application using EntitySpaces 2009 and Sybase, very cool stuff. Customers can find this release under our Products –> Downloads menu. The source code for customers who purchased source code should be published later on this evening and be available by Monday morning at the latest. UPDATE – 2009-08-07: We have posted a Trial version of this Alpha on our Trial Download page.

This Alpha Release only includes EntitySpaces providers for SQL Server and Sybase. The EntitySpaces 2009 Q3 enhancements will be rolled into the other providers and be available with the upcoming Beta Release. Our current Production Release (with all providers) is EntitySpaces 2009.1.0209.0. It is available to Customers on the Products Downloads page, and as a Trial version on the Trial Download page. For current customers wishing to try the EntitySpaces provider for Sybase, or want to get a jump start on the Q3 enhancements for SQL Server, be sure to read the installation instructions and release notes for the Alpha.

New EntitySpaces Users

Also, be sure and register on our forums. We have created two new areas specifically for our Sybase providers. If the issue you are having is specific to one of our Sybase providers, such as the incorrect SQL being generated (which isn’t very likely), post a note in the proper Sybase forum. Of course, all other “How do I ?” questions you can ask in the proper area on our forums.

Finally, on your EntitySpaces 2009 menu after installation you will see Windows.Forms, ASP.NET, and Silverlight programming samples that will compile right out of the box. They are set to run against the Microsoft SQL Northwind database. Even if that is not the database you are running they are great samples to look at. The ASP.NET samples also use our esDataSource control. So if you are looking for example code be sure and check the sample applications found in your EntitySpaces 2009 program menu entry.

Other Features

There are some other very nice features in this alpha release. Our proxies now support something we call “Compact XML” and can be used whenever you are using both our Client side and Server Side proxies together and avoiding the middle man (that is the Visual Studio Generated proxies as we do in our Silverlight demo). We have updated our online Silverlight example and it is now using our Compact XML mode. As a side note, Silverlight supports something called Binary XML serialization out of the box with only a config file change required.

There is also a new feature in the Settings Tab that lets you control what happens on a double click a template in the Template tab. You can either have the double click launch the template for editing, or for execution, or for execution with the last known settings. The EntitySpaces Universal Concurrency checking mechanism IS NOT in this release, but it will be in our upcoming beta.

Our next step is going to be to rapidly upgrade the rest of our data providers, implement our “EntitySpaces Universal Concurrency” feature for database independent concurrency handling, make our project files path relative, and squeeze in more features from our Q3 Wish List forum. Things are going to move very rapidly. After next weeks team meeting we should be able to publish the target release our first beta, including what features will be included, and finally, publish the RTW date for the official release of  EntitySpaces 2009 Q3.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net