Meet Entity Framework, the Anti-SQL Framework

Entity Framework 6 is coming! Entity Framework 6 is now ramping up for a release. It brings nice Async functionality, but also gives lots more power to the Code First capability, as well as also bringing EF completely out of the core .NET framework - it's instead now a standalone NuGet package. So, the story …

Why Entity Framework renders the Repository pattern obsolete?

A post here on a pattern I thought was obsolete yet I still see cropping up in projects using EF time and time again... What is a Repository? The repository pattern – to me – is just a form of data access gateway. We used it to provide both a form of abstraction above the …

Tips on writing an EF-based ETL

I’ve been working on a relatively small ETL (that’s Extract-Transform-Load) process recently. It’s been written in C# using EF4 and is designed to migrate some data – perhaps a million rows in total – from one database schema to another as a one-off job. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary there; the object mapping is …

Creating a testable WCF RIA Domain Service – Part 2

I posted a few weeks ago about writing a testable LinqToEntities domain service and came up with a number of options. The last one was my preferred choice i.e. use of the new keyword to “overwrite” the real context on the base class with an interface that your context implements. I’ve now refined it to …

Testing out the Entity Framework WCF RIA Services Domain Service

I’ve started using RIA Services lately and have been testing it out with an EF4 back-end. Generally I’m quite impressed with it, as it gives you several things out of the box that you normally would need to spend time coding otherwise: - Hosting of the WCF service IQueryable on the client Batch updates through …

NuGet, EF4.1 and SQL Compact 4

As I’m waiting around this week for furniture to be delivered to my new abode, I was passing the time today by trying out EF4.1. I thought it’d also be a good opportunity to try out NuGet in order to see how easy it is to download packages + dependencies etc. etc.. So, the test …

Entity Framework Code-First almost released

I should actually qualify that by saying the first version of it is almost released. I blogged about Code First what seems like ages ago, and it’s great to see a version of it getting out there. However, this version won’t ship with several features – some of which are in the current model- and …

Entity Framework and Concrete-Table-per-Type Inheritance

As I alluded to on a recent post of mine, I’ve been experimenting with inheritance in EF4. EF4 (allegedly) supports 3 types: - Table-per-Hierarchy: One physical DB table contains all fields for the entire type hierarchy. This is the only mode of inheritance in Linq to SQL. Table-per-Type: One physical DB table stores all shared …

EF3.5 and relationships

Having been using EF3.5 lately, I just thought I’d point of one of the things that they did which – to my mind – was completely mad (thankfully rectified in EF4). You have a parent-child relationship e.g. Course and Pupil You load a Pupil instance on its own You want to find out the ID …

Entity Framework 4 “Code First” CTP

There are all sorts of blog posts flying about at the moment regarding EF4’s Code First CTP: - Scott Guthrie's Blog Scott Hanselman's Blog Entity Framework Design Blog Since they all cover the finer details in excruiating detail, I wanted to just talk about my brief experience with it yesterday and today. Firstly, installation is …