Entity Framework Week

This is the fifth in a series of five posts recounting my experiences using Entity Framework Code-First to replace ADO.NET and stored procedures in a client’s existing application. The introductory post in the series is here. I am lucky to have had the opportunity to spend a time-boxed period playing with Entity Framework Code-First in a real-world scenario, and to get paid for the privilege! I now have a clearer understanding of how it has progressed during the last few years, what its strong points are, and where it still has shortcomings compared to the much more mature NHibernate framework. ...

This is the fourth in a series of five posts recounting my experiences using Entity Framework Code-First to replace ADO.NET and stored procedures in a client’s existing application. The introductory post in the series is here. I didn’t want this series of posts to descend into a point-scoring NHibernate-versus-Entity Framework comparison, but… I now have a basic proof-of-concept up and running, with my client’s nascent application now being powered by Entity Framework Code-First CTP5 rather than a hand-rolled DAL. So, I had some time to consider future functional and non-functional requirements that the team would be asked to develop and support, and investigate how EF would meet the challenge. ...

This is the third in a series of five posts recounting my experiences using Entity Framework Code-First to replace ADO.NET and stored procedures in a client’s existing application. The introductory post in the series is here. Having configured and initialized Entity Framework, and tweaked the mappings, by Day 3 I was all set to start consuming my shiny new DbContext implementation from the application code, and actually get some CRUD work done. Not unexpectedly, I hit a few issues along the way… ...

This is the second in a series of five posts recounting my experiences using Entity Framework Code-First to replace ADO.NET and stored procedures in a client’s existing application. The introductory post in the series is here. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was attempting to use Entity Framework Code-First CTP5 to map an existing domain model to an existing database schema. Fortunately the project was in its infancy and there was a high degree of cohesion between the two models. I therefore didn’t anticipate too many difficulties ahead – the occasional naming discrepancy to resolve, and table-per-hierarchy mappings that would need their discriminators specifying – nothing too complicated really. I hoped to make as few changes as possible to either the database schema or domain model. ...

In February 2011 I found myself doing some contract development work in a team that was still doing data access using raw ADO.NET and stored procedures. Being the NHibernate fanboy that I am, I naturally attempted to persuade them of the benefits of moving over to NH, even going so far as to develop (in my own time) an NH-powered version of their application. My efforts were partially successful. The team were sold on the idea of using an ORM, but wanted me to develop a second proof of concept using Microsoft ADO.NET Entity Framework rather than NHibernate. This prompted much mirth amongst my FaceBook friends. ...