Question

When should one use Fields from the CMS and when to use class properties and database fields?

My scenario:
Created a product content part with fields usage (text) and price (double). Then I have created a contenttype product and added the part.

I could also have created a product record in models and added a product table. And a part with driver etc.
At first glance I dont see difference besides option 2 requiring programming.

However I did encounter a problem:
In option 2 I could use repository and create a lot of items programmatically.
In option 1 I could create product content items but was not able to fill in the fields of the product part (no errors, but fields remained empty)

So when to use option 1 and when option 2?
And is my problem with option 1 related to that option?

EDIT: Clarifiation of problem with option 1

I have created a productpart. To the productpart I have added the field price which is a decimal and I have added a field Usage of product which is a text field.

In the code I have the following:

        dynamic item = _cm.New("Product");
        item.TitlePart.Title = "Mijn dummy product";
        item.BodyPart.Text = "Some dummy text for this product";
        item.ProductPart.Price.Value = new decimal(20.5);
        item.ProductPart.Usage.Value = "Some dummy usage of this product";
        _cm.Create(item);

After running the code, the product is created with the correct title and body text, but Usage and Price come up emtpy.
I also tried it with the item.As<> method. But that does not compile to As since I have not created an object with that name.

Answer 1

Apparently the item has to be created first before accessing the contentpart and fields. At least it worked for me.

Please verify if my analysis is correct. If so I will mark it an answer, as well as the answer of Bertrand.

The code now looks like this:

    var item = _cm.New("Product");
    item.As<TitlePart>().Title = "Mijn dummy product";
    item.As<BodyPart>().Text = "Some dummy text for this product";

    //Create first before accessing the contentparts that are dynamic.
    _cm.Create(item);

    //And then access the product via dynamic object.
    dynamic dyn = item;
    item.ProductPart.Price.Value = new decimal(20.5);
    item.ProductPart.Usage.Value = "Some dummy usage of this product";