Re: Data Access Layer

You are correct, in GetByExample() you can pass a second parm that is a
Conjunction parameter to specify AND or OR. There's also an opportunity
for the class to get involved in a callback to add additional parameters
to the query (ignore all rows marked as deleted) and we'll follow
relations set on the example object, but yes, it's targeted at simple
queries. For the more advanced ones we do exactly what you're saying, we
add GetBySomeSpecificRequirement() and
GetBySomeOtherSpecificRequirement() methods.

The ORM base class also has a GetBySQL(), but it's protected, so only
children (other business objects) can use it. Of course, the business
object could expose a more relaxed query mechanism if it needed to.

It's the 80/20 rule (95/5?) The simple stuff gets you 95% of the way
there, for those 5% of the time cases, you need to do more work.

As for using other providers, much of what we're doing is off-i anyway
these days. When we have a choice, we're choosing SQLServer as we simply
find it more capable. Of course, that's only true when you don't have
RPG code that's trying to access the data too. :-)

-Walden