Explaining aggregates and repositories

with regards to my recommendation to avoid the repository, stan asks :

you returned to explain why repository pattern is evil. just interesting to know what are you doing when you need in your model to access another aggregate. do you reference nh from your model? i prefer to leave my model pocoed and wrap db calls by repository pattern. sleeping good with it.

this is an interesting question. there are several ways to answer that. to start with, assuming that we are using ddd model (which the usage of a repository would imply), you don’t have references between aggregates.

but let us assume that we somehow need that, stan seems to suggest something like this proposed solution :

public class person 
{
    public static readonly datetime importantdate;
    public birthplace birthplace { get; set; } 

    public datetime birthdate 
    { 
        get; private set;
    } 

    public void correctbirthdate(irepository<birthplace> birthplaces, datetime date)
    {
        if (birthplace != null && date < importantdate && birthplace.isspecial) 
        { 
            birthplace = birthplaces.getfordate(date); 
        }
    }
}

here we have a business rule that states that this is required.

but do we actually need a repository here? what if we just said that whoever calls us need to provide us with a way to get the birth place by date?

public void correctbirthdate(
        func<datetime, birthplace> getbirthplacefordate, 
        datetime date)
{
    if (birthplace != null && date < importantdate && birthplace.isspecial) 
    { 
        birthplace = getbirthplacefordate(date); 
    }
}

this can be done with a simple delegate, no need to introduce a heavy weight abstraction. this is a local solution for a local problem. it keeps the database out from your entities and more importantly, it allows you to actually craft the appropriate response to this at the time of the call .