I'm definitely an old-school code-sql-by-hand guy and I used an ORM (Entity Framework 4.0 Code-First) for the first time for my startup project, a data-intensive online strategy game.
I've found that for many things, it's so much faster in terms of dev time, especially with the super-cool code-first approach, to get things out there and working using the ORM. I can create a new fully-functioning and reliably-working repository class, along with its test double, in around a minute. Really.
Of course, I have found that I've had to replace bits of it with hand-coded SQL for performance reasons. But I've decided to stick this general approach for now because I don't need to substantially rearchitect everything, I can just replace the very few bits that have proven to be an actual performance bottleneck, and keep the development speed for the many places where runtime speed just doesn't matter as much.
I don't mean to start an argument over which ORM you want to go with, but you might want to give this a look, if you're interested in being able to quickly iterate on a data model and still have test coverage: http://wiki.fluentnhibernate.org/Persistence_specification_t....
No problem. Do you have any info about your startup? I have been working on a similar idea as a back-burner thing for years but I'm in the process of doing a different startup, so I think it'll stay there.
It's a turn-based, (largely) asynchronous, strategic conquest game that uses the same ruleset as a classic board game that you probably played when you were a kid.
The idea is to create a social game that you're not embarrassed to play. You know the trend of people getting together in bars to play Settlers of Catan for hours on Friday nights? We're trying to make a game that same people would want to play for a few minutes at a time from their office on Monday morning.
I've got a half-written article about how we're doing some cool continuous deployment stuff that I plan on sharing with HN soon. In the meantime, any and all feedback is welcome.
I was interested in your game, I played Galaxy PBEM some time ago, but you have few flaws:
1. You assume that everybody played board game, which I haven't, so you don't have an easy introduction for a new player.
2. You have single player game, but you set up a high barrier to try it, I don't understand why you need logging in when a cookie will be enough.
1. We do have a pretty straightforward tutorial. Http://victorsunited.com/help/tutorial
2. We are working on a way to bypass the login/registration requirement for single player games. To be honest, the Singleplayer mode was something of an afterthought, and the SP experience isn't yet as polished as it should be.
I've found that for many things, it's so much faster in terms of dev time, especially with the super-cool code-first approach, to get things out there and working using the ORM. I can create a new fully-functioning and reliably-working repository class, along with its test double, in around a minute. Really.
Of course, I have found that I've had to replace bits of it with hand-coded SQL for performance reasons. But I've decided to stick this general approach for now because I don't need to substantially rearchitect everything, I can just replace the very few bits that have proven to be an actual performance bottleneck, and keep the development speed for the many places where runtime speed just doesn't matter as much.