Strategy for Sharing Business and Data Access Entities

Question

I'm designing a layered application where 90% of the business and data access entities have the same properties. Basically it doesn't make sense to create one set of classes for each layer (and map) with the same properties for the sake of separation of concerns. I'm completely aware of automappers but I'd rather not use one in this case as I think it's unecessary. Is it ok to share share the business entities between the business and data access layer in this scenario? We will manage the remaining 10% of the classes by creating adhoc/transformed classes within the same namespace. Any other design approach?

Answer 1

I think sharing between layers is the whole point of having model classes backed by a data store. I would avoid adding unnecessary architecture unless the code really needs it. If you get to a point where you need to be agnostic of the data store or some other similar situation, I would you might look into the Repository pattern. Simple code = maintainable code.