.NET Rocks! Automapper V14 with Jimmy Bogard
Mar 13, 2025
Jimmy Bogard, an independent software consultant and the mastermind behind AutoMapper and Mediator, shares insights on the evolution of AutoMapper over its remarkable seventeen-year journey. He discusses the challenges of maintaining a beloved open-source library and how it transformed from a personal tool into a community staple with hundreds of millions of downloads. Jimmy reflects on the importance of community engagement and feedback, while navigating the complexities of software design and the balance between innovation and stability.
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Automapper's Humble Origins
- Automapper began as an internal library for a client in 2008 before going open source in 2009.
- Jimmy Bogard did not initially advertise its existence or do conference talks specifically about it.
Open Source Maintenance Essentials
- Don't accept every pull request without review for your open source project.
- Always test your releases thoroughly before publishing on NuGet.
Runtime Over Compile-Time Checks
- Automapper compiles mappings at runtime using expression trees rather than code generation.
- This approach trades compile-time errors for runtime validation performed by Automapper's configuration validator.