I love NHibernate. But over the last year I’ve found myself starting to use LINQ to SQL more and more.

Most recently I have taken a contract where they use only LINQ to SQL and so I’ve allowed myself to become immersed in it for a while. I realised that I can achieve everything from small to medium weight projects with LINQ to SQL where-as before I was reserving NHibernate for the medium to larger projects, and this is the problem.

I’ve invested a substantial amount of time learning NHibernate and also creating a library which allows me to implement it with relative ease into any web-based project. Essentially, it hides the session handling completely and configuration to varying degrees.

Larger projects are generally few and far between in comparison. So I am using LINQ to SQL more than I would. Obviously, the next step is fore me to start using Microsoft’s Entity Framework (EF). And when this happens do I give up NHibernate?

I’ve been avoiding picking up EF for this very reason. Am I cutting off my nose to spite my face? I just don’t know if I have enough room in my brain for yet another ORM framework.

I guess my hand may be forced. Let’s see.