For whatever sadistic reason, I signed up to give not one, but two, presentations at the upcoming Portland Code Camp. I have also made a commitment to Chris Bilson to come up to Tacoma to present on nHibernate in support of the Lunch Time Speakers Group. So in an effort to kill two birds with one stone, I sat down today and whipped up a outline of what I intend to present. Your thoughts, comments, suggestions & ridicule are welcome.

Introduction to ORM with nHibernate

What is ORM?

• Object/Relational Impedance Mismatch
• Pros
• Cons

The Basics

• What Do I Need To Get Started?
• Mapping Part I: Class Map XML
• Configuration Part I: How Do I Connect to My Database?
• nHibernate Config file
• web.config or app.config
• ISession
• ISessionFactory
• Configuration
• ITransaction
• Unit of Work Pattern

A Better Way

• Mapping Part II: ClassMap<T> For the Win!
• Mapping Part III: AutoMapping Using Conventions
• Overriding for Special Cases
• Configuration Part II: The Fluent Configuration API

Querying

• Hibernate Query Language (HQL): Just Say No
• Criteria API
• The New Hotness: Linq to nHibernate

Tricks of the Trade

• Generating Schema  From The Object Model
• Updating Schema When The Objects Change
• Integration Tests That Validate Your Mappings
• Using SQLLite To Make BDD Style Tests Lightening Fast

Resources

• nhforge.org
• fluentnhibernate.org
• summerofnhibernate.com
• nhibernate in action from Manning