I have a .Net 3.5 web application and need to change old code to use a DAL technology. I need some help on the pros and cons of choosing a DAL. I know of Linq to SQL but heard that it is an old and dying technology and EF 4 (but since I'm using .Net 3.5, I can't use it?). Does the old EF (1.0?) acceptable?
EF 1.0 in .NET 3.5 is, to put it mildly, ..... virtually unusable. Don't do this to yourself...
And yes, Linq-to-SQL isn't being developed any further - but it's fast, it's easy to use - it just works! And it would give you a first "taste" of how to use LINQ to do your database querying - you can always upgrade this to EF 4/5/6 later on!
Other serious options would be Dapper-Dot-Net as an extremely simple "micro-ORM" (or others)