.Net MySQL Generic CRUD Repository

Question

Is it possible to create a generic CRUD repository in VB.Net for MySQL connection without depending to any third party ORM?

I mean, MySQL CRUD depends on string to identify which table(s) and field(s) you want to access, meanwhile what we have is a .Net object.

Is the only way to achieve this is to use ORM and/or Reflection class? Can't we do something about the object or string to match each other?

Let's say I got this repository interface :

public interface IRepository<T> where T:class
{
    void Insert(T entity);
    void Delete(T entity);
    IQueryable<T> GetAll();
    T GetById(string id);
}

What comes in my mind after seeing this interface is to create a personal Repository for each of my object, even though the CRUD method is very similar.

For example I have to create a repository for Employee CRUD.

class EmployeeRepository : IRepository<Employee>
{
    private string _query;

    public IQueryable<Employee> GetAll(Employee entity)
    {
        _query = "SELECT * FROM tbl_msemployee";
        //Do query here, which will eventually return a list of Employee object
    }
}

Answer 1

I guess that is better to use an existing ORM to handle CRUD operations. You then build above this orm layer your repositories (t4 maybe or other code-generation) and your service layer.