Yevhen Shchyholyev discusses some of the problems that the user may face in the process of developing an application with Entity Framework that interacts with Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite as well as SQL Server. It is intended to be useful to both developers using one of these databases for the first time as well as for those who regularly interaction with multiple databases.
The Code First approach means that the object model is created in code, and then the database structure is generated from that model. Code First Migrations allows developers to make changes to the database via code, many of which can be done automatically.
Since .NET 4 was released Microsoft has been pushing an ever faster release cadence for its .NET libraries with new features coming out every few months instead of every few years like it had done in the past. As a result of a recent embarrassment, the ADO.NET team is moving back to using beta releases and, to reduce future confusion, adopting the concept of Semantic Versioning.
The introduction of a Code First option in Entity Framework has received quite a bit of praise. While it still has a long way to go before it unseats the reigning ORM, nHibernate, the progress Microsoft is making is quite astounding. In order to keep the momentum up Microsoft is releasing a set of power tools that will take an existing database and create a Code First representation.
ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 is upon us – slated for a late April release, it will come with a whole set of new features, but not all of them are going to make it.
Earlier this month the ADO.NET team released CTP5 of their Entity Framework Code-First library. The library is meant to provide a code-centric workflow for developers when working with data.
IBM is offering a demo of their DB2 Add-ins for Visual Studio 2010. In addition to "full end to end debugging for SQL procedures for VB and C# apps”, it includes ADO.NET and Entity Framework providers for many of the DB2 variants.
Serena Yeoh, a Microsoft consultant and a contributor to Microsoft pattern&practices Application Architecture Guide, has created a Layered Architecture Sample for .NET 4.0 which was later ported to Azure, showcasing various .NET technologies (WPF, WCF, WF, ASP.NET, ADO.NET EF) used in an architecture based on the Layered Architecture design pattern.
Entity Framework Feature CTP 4 recently released updates the Code First programming model with new code conventions and data annotations, and adds two new types, DbContext and DbSet
