--- title: "WilsonORMapper at version 3.0, and what's an OR mapper anyway?" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/9/3/wilsonormapper-at-version-30-and-whats-an-or-mapper-anyway.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/9/3/wilsonormapper-at-version-30-and-whats-an-or-mapper-anyway.html" published: "2004-09-03T18:29:00" updated: "2004-09-03T18:29:00" tags: [".Net Original", "Cool Tools"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "it's free 50$, it sounds wonderful, and its at a version 3.0(via Mike ) - so its mature enough. I should really give the WilsonORMapper a try. I wonder why COM+ transactions are not supported though. What's an OR…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # WilsonORMapper at version 3.0, and what's an OR mapper anyway? By Roy Osherove September 3, 2004 In [.Net Original](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-original), [Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools) **Historical article** · Originally published September 3, 2004; technical details may be outdated. it's ~free~ 50$, it sounds wonderful, and its at a version 3.0(via [Mike](http://www.larkware.com/Articles/TheDailyGrind453.html))  - so its mature enough. I should really give the [WilsonORMapper](http://weblogs.asp.net/pwilson/archive/2004/09/01/224402.aspx) a try. I wonder why COM+ transactions are not supported though. What's an OR mapper? its an Object-relational mapping utility - that allows you to create objects that map and persist data to your relational database automatically. It generates code for you and you just have to know how to use the object model that was generated. I never used an OR mapper personally - but I should really give it a try someday. The way I see it it can either save a lot of time, or be a total disaster, or both, or neither. Simple huh? There's also [ObjectSpaces](http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnadonet/html/objectspaces.asp), Microsoft's own future OR mapper is to be released someday, sometime, soon(update: should be merged in as a prt of the upcoming WinFS system). Speaking of which - when people ask me what OR mapper I recommend to try first I recommend they try the (not free) [LLBLGen pro](http://www.llblgen.com/).  I've given the demo a spin and it looks to be amazing. Plus - I know the due behind this thing - [Frans Bouma](http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/), and I know that whatever he's behind will be serious and well thought out. The guy is brilliant. ## More in .Net Original [All posts in .Net Original](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-original) - Sep 6, 2004 ### [Yukon "Query Notification": a life saver](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/9/6/yukon-quotquery-notificationquot-a-life-saver.html) - Sep 3, 2004 ### [.Net Blogger geek meets Eric Rudder, asks questions, gets answers, is happy](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/9/3/net-blogger-geek-meets-eric-rudder-asks-questions-gets-answe.html) - Sep 3, 2004 ### [Testing GUIs and customer tests using FIT](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/9/3/testing-guis-and-customer-tests-using-fit.html) - Sep 1, 2004 ### [Sunday at the VB.Net users group: Software Architecture: Techniques, Methods, and Issues](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/9/1/sunday-at-the-vbnet-users-group-software-architecture-techni.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/