[Mono-list] Any interest in a new open source project?

[Ole Hyldahl Hansen]

Andrew Arnott wrote:

> I have a project I call Safari Cell, for now, that takes a relational 
> SQL database and turns it into a DataSet with DataTables for every 
> table, complete with DataRelations, UniqueConstraints, 
> ForeignKeyConstraints and a few other handy things. All the Data… 
> objects are hidden, however, behind classes that manage filling those 
> entities with data from the database on an as-called-for basis. 
> Modified data is cached and written later by a lazy-writer thread. 
> Unused data is eventually removed from the cache. Any modified column 
> is validated against any extra schema available from the DB server.
>
> The goal is to make it really easy to write business objects that 
> operate on relational databases, to take advantage of fast caching, 
> transactions, and all without writing any plumbing code in the 
> business object itself. Safari Cell scans the database schema at 
> startup and exposes everything through typed classes.
>
> I have done a great deal of work on this project, all in Visual Studio 
> .NET in C#. I want to make it open source so that others can help add 
> code to support other DB servers besides just MS SQL Server. I started 
> the project with extensibility and multiple database server backends 
> in mind.
>
> Is there a great deal of interest in helping these classes grow and 
> mature? I am planning on putting the source up on Novell’s sourceforge 
> if people are willing to use/contribute.
>
> - Andrew Arnott
>

Andrew, I am sure there will be great interest in such a project, juding 
from the large number of Object-Relationel Mappers. As far as I know 
most are proprietary. I have put some effort into finding a suitable 
solution but no acceptable free solutions exists (I could not find any. 
Please prove me wrong).

I have worked a little on something that sounds quite similar to what 
you are describing. I would very much like to see what you have produced 
so far, and if we are indeed persuing the same goal I will be willing to 
help with the creation of a free solution.

Regards,
Ole Hyldahl Hansen
C/S student and freelance software developer.