Sunday, May 18, 2008

Entity Framework - Why use it instead of ADO.Net, Linq to SQL or other ORM?

system.data.objects dev guy - Why use the Entity Framework?

"There are a number of places where you can read an introduction to the Entity Framework, listen to a podcast about it, or watch a screen cast or video of an interview.  Even with these various resources, though, there are so many different data access technologies out there that it's not uncommon for me to get the question: Why should I use the Entity Framework?  Or what differentiates it from other options like just using ADO.Net SqlClient and friends, LINQ to SQL or something like nHibernate?  I like the second question better, because the truth is that different problems merit different solutions.  So here's just a quick take on my perspective about these

..."

I'm still a little leery about jumping into the EF boat, having been burned by jumping to early into past data access method boats...

BUT I'm seeing MS use EF in some project (ADO.Net Data Services and others) and that gives some hope. Also I like the concepts around EF, like the separation between entity and DB schema. Having written more ADO/ADO.Net glue code than I want to think about, making that easier would make me a happy camper.

I'm still likely not going to roll it into a production app on RTM day 1, but I am going to be watching it closely, considering how and where it will make my development faster, easier and applications better...

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