Data is a funny business. While at the moment I am spending a lot of time teaching Silverlight, my passion still lives in the data. I was brought up on  Minisystems (Multi-user CP/M and the like) where you were dealing with something like a database (though we didn't have that as firm a concept as you might think). Later I did quite a lot of desktop database development starting with dBase II (yes, I am that old), Paradox, Clipper, FoxPro and even Access. That naturally led to client-server and N-Tier development. Throughout all the time its become exceptionally clear how much data matters to most applications.

If you havent voted, please feel free to vote for what data access strategy here:

I had interesting conversations with a number of people about different data access/ORM strategies at MIX recently and was trying to understand where people are spending their efforts in consuming data. The conversation was essentially a discussion of who is using what to access data in .NET applications. I had assumed that certain solutions were widely used and others were not but I didn't have a good idea of what the market was really like. To help me with this I am asking you (my readers) to share with me where you are investing time in data access by taking the following poll:

Url: http://www.devsource.com/article2/0,1895,192569...

I am currently doing a bunch of evaluations on OR Mappers, Code Gen and Business Object Frameworks for my new book.  If anyone knows about anything great that might go unnoticed, please drop a comment or send me an email!

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Recently I was talking with Rocky Lhotka and he said something interesting:

I've had time lately to think about the nature of data in development lately.  I've been talking with Rocky Lhotka and Michael Earls about it (as well as number of others) about the issues with dealing with data in applications. 

I've been following some threads on the DevelopMentor .NET Mailing Lists about what is a good solution for O/R Mapping.  I am intrigued by a couple of ideas, especially ones that no one seems to be talking about: