DISCLAIMER: This post is not about bashing SF that doesn't have WPF support right out of the box, but to see how we can leverage SF's power in developing 3-tier WPF apps.



Looking at several companies who are actively developing controls for VS2008 (Orcase) WPF and silverlight, I want to start looking into developing apps that Uses WPF UIs.



SF, has several great parts Business Objects, BO mapper, validations & business rules, Security, UI controls, Database Deployment, 3-tier SE and etc.

Now what parts of SF can we use to work with WPF?

a) Business Objects (for sure)

b) Server Enterprise (a must for me)

c) Validation and rules (can this be done if SF doesn't have hooks to the UI controls)

d) RBS (I'd love to, but can we use it)

e) BO Mapper (a must to create the DAL)

f) DDT (for sure)



I'd love to hear opinions of those who have experience in SF and also thinking about te new wave!



Thank you all!


..ßen

LINQ "IS" the Language INtegrated Query and it's an extension language added to the .Net to be able to query any IEnumarable collection. That part is a great welcome, but it only IS a part of the whole picture of using Database from OO point of view.



First, you need an ORM to create your DAL layer to map each field of database to a property, you then need to be able to talk to database for reading/writing/updating/deleting records and many more functions that go with.



Secondly, you then need your business layer to put many business logic, including validation, security and etc.



and thirdly having UI controls to connect to the that.



Looking at LINQ offering, yes they do have the DAL part to map the database to properties using SQLMETAL.EXE or the visual designer, but beyond that, you have to use LINQ to do your own business layer, adding record..., and calling SProcs to add/update/delete records.



SF, as a "Framework" has lots of these already taken care. Once they incorporate the LINQ as their query language, the whole SF package still will be ahead of what MS has to offer.



I hope this short sentence gives an idea!

..ßen