Jim Zimmerman - ASP.NET, MVC, Ajax and ORM

Ok, I am still having a hard time sitting down after playing with this and getting it to work on a few prototypes using existing database schemas. It works with both SQL Server 2000 and 2005 along with MySql.  It has a few issues, all of which are correctable, but I have to say this is going to change the way I develop every web application.  It truly is a RAD toolkit that helps your website build itself as you go.  As I write this my mind is wondering at the possibilities.  The best thing about this is that it is open source.  Go to the SubSonic Project on CodePlex and download the source yourself. 

Make sure to spend the 20 minutes watching the Webcast on how to set it up.  You will be amazed.  If it does not work at first with your database schema or you have weird errors make sure to try and build all the class files and try to compile it.  There may be some naming conventions that you will need to follow in order to get it to compile right.  One off the top of my head is to not name a column the same name as any table.  I just changed the way I named a few columns and in what order and it worked beautifully.

This project has great promise because it can really help teams of developers build projects very quickly.  You can download the release, but if you want to be cutting edge I suggest you download the latest source code from the Latest Source Control Commits.  They have really added a lot of functionality since the last release.  I don't know how many bugs there are, but it worked good for me.

You can also listen to more about it on a Dotnetrocks podcast from October 2006 with Rob Conery.

Hats off to Rob Conery for starting a very cool toolkit for RAD web development in ASP.NET!  Thank you!