Should I use SubSonic or Dynamic Data for a new CRUD asp.net application?

Question

I need to throw together a quick CRUD asp.net site, but this may become a bigger application down the road. I have some experience with SubSonic, but it has been so long since I did a project with it I have to relearn it. I am also considering using Dynamic Data. Does anyone have any experience with these tools that can tell me which way I should go?

Scalise

Answer 1

I use subsonic for almost everything these days. The advantage of SubSonic is that you can build whatever abstraction layer you want on top of it, if you need to enhance/extend it later - it really only serves one main purpose - taking the crap out of creating crud code.

I've not used dynamic data extensively, but from what I've read, it seems like it creates a lot of the scaffolding for you, and it might not mix well with a more extensive application. If you need future extensibility, I'd recommend subsonic, but dynamic data may be the way to go for short one-off applications strictly used to maintain a database via the web.

Mannish

Answer 2

I have used SubSonic before and in my case it worked great. If all you need is an abstraction layer SubSonic does a great job while keeping setup and knowledge curve very simple. I am not sure about Dynamic Data but with Subsonic as your database grows the process to regenerate classes is very simple. Also, Subsonic works well with views and stored procedures everything can be accessed from the your classes. The tutorial are helpful for setting up data providers and references. Not sure if there is much help with Dynamic Data. So if you are looking for quick and easy I would say SubSonic is the way to go.

Omniscient

Answer 3

Dynamic data is basically a very advanced customizable grid solution. If you want to do CRUD with some extra controls and customization then that’s the way to go.

If you want more complex logic then SubSonic makes more sence. I think Dynamic Data is great for setting up templates for CRUD with some advanced extra controls.

Have a look at some videos on asp.net to get a good impression.

Conflux

Answer 4

Essentially they are the same, however, with Subsonic, you can customize it more, and also, you can use T4 templates to generate your own code to complement the subsonic stuff.

Gally