In-house Frameworks vs New C# Technologies

Question

If we have developed our own ORM framework and the framework is working fine over the years then why should we learn and use brand new .net technologies like LINQ or Entity Framework or NHibernate or CSLA.NET for our upcoming software projects?

Note : New frameworks need new effort to learn and teach.

Note : This is just an analogy.

Answer 1

1. Because new developers will know the newer frameworks, but not yours
2. So you don't have to waste time maintaining code that Microsoft would maintain for you

BTW, "LINQ", per se, is a technology complementary to your framework

Answer 2

Because what you currently have is proprietary and unknown... and you want to still be able to develop your code efficiently if you get new staff.

There's nothing wrong with writing your own ORM, but maybe Entity Framework 2 contains some stuff you didn't think about - and there's a whole team and community behind it making it better all the time while your code just gets stale (I'm not saying it is, by the way - it's just an example).

From a personal point of view, knowing nHibernate is a transferable skill. Knowing CompanyXORM isn't.