RIA Services is a great technology, but how does it fit into the MVVM pattern? Can we easily encapsulate it in a Model? How can we isolate RIA Services in the model definition in order to allow developers to implement automated unit testing?
When RIA Services came into the market, its pros were highlighted as a RAD (Rapid Application Development) technology. It was praised so much that most members of the community have the wrong perception that it cannot be used with applications building an architecture (that is, based on the MVVM pattern).
On the contrary, RIA Services can be encapsulated in a model by using one of the following approaches:
Database first: get advantage of the entities extracted from the database and use them as the transport layer.
Use objects POCO and T4 templates to generate the code. This means hard work (http://bit.ly/eFwcJ2).
Use CodeFirst and POCO objects (at the time of printing, the RTM version of the RIA...