steps to build a NHibernate data layer

What are the proper steps to design and implmement a NHibernate data layer ? Should I include a step to let NHibernat开发者_JAVA百科e to generate the schema defintion rather than coding the schema by myself ?

It all depends whether you are starting from scratch or not. For new projects I use NHibernate to create the schema for me. For existing projects that I want to switch to NH I usually do the db changes manually. You need to be a little careful though in regards to your mapping and the db you are using. If you do not use the correct mapping with the correct db mapping you might have performance issues, as well as objects might update themselves without you knowing and when you flush the session your db will be updated.

In regards to using an actual data layer I usually use the Automatic Transaction Management & the NHibernate Facility from the Castle project. You can also make your own configuration builder for the NHibernate Facility so that it works with Fluent NHibernate as well.

That's a very open question.

Regarding the schema generation, yes, it's usually better to let NHibernate generate it.

For architectures based on NHibernate, you can check Sharp Architecture, Effectus and uNhAddIns