Narrowing ORM options for the sake of sanity
"The right tool for the job" or so the saying goes which I don’t believe can be applied to a choice between LINQ to SQL and the Entity Framework. Currently I am evaluating the virtues of Entity Framework over LINQ To
SQL; why not use both I hear you say? Well I have already reached the point in the evaluation to know that there is not enough separating them to make me consider maintaining skills in both and considering that all Microsoft’s serious investment is going into the Entity Framework then the choice is made that much easier.
I have found to date that I can continue with using the Repository approach along with the Specification Pattern (for dynamic querying) and Fetching Strategies and that was a big criteria for me. There are of course some lingering frustrations with Version 1.0 however at this point I am satisfied that the Entity Framework team will address those in subsequent releases and for the moment I will endure.
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Even if the EF team will address the v1 issues in v2, it is still unclear if:
a) will it be “too little, too late”? The EFDesign blog doesn’t exactly shine with brilliant new ideas, rather a bunch of disappointments. So far they have announced things for EFv2 like: “no built in N-tier support”, a “model first” approach that will blow away the database (Tim Mallileaus own words @ PDC) every time you make a small change to the model, etc
b) will EFv2 be compatible with EFv1? To fix some of the issues I am pretty sure they will have to break compatibility with 1.0 in many cases.
I think that using L2S for now and migrating to EFv2 in 2010 or 2011 may be a better option (read: less headache today dealing with EFs shortcomings in areas where L2S works).
[Reply]
Kristofer
LINQ To SQL would have been my preference initially however in light of the recent events / announcements and the ever dwindling amount of time available I felt I needed to make a choice for the future. Perhaps I am putting too much faith in the product? I would certainly love to know what impact the advisory council are having and think it would be in EF Teams interest to publish the outcome of the councils input. I am hope that initiative doesn’t become a toothless Tiger.
Thanks,
Simon
[Reply]
Roger Jennings ( http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com ) has repeatedly asked them for the minutes from the “advisory council” meetings. Tim Mallalieu promised several months ago that he would publish it but has since been quiet on the subject. I don’t know what to read into that. See:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/adodotnetentityframework/thread/fbc25d23-54c1-49de-bd4d-6402059ea66f/
[Reply]
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