
Microsoft ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 Released - hanifvirani
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2011/04/11/ef-4-1-released.aspx
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pragmatic
One problem with Entity Framework is lack of alternative (not MS Sql Server)
database support.

We are a Microsoft shop. However recently we've had to integrate with Oracle
and now MySql. Oracle has just released beta support for EF:
[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/dotnet/downloads/or...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/dotnet/downloads/oracleefbeta-302521.html)

We have been Using Cool Storage
(<http://viciproject.com/wiki/projects/coolstorage/home>) for quite some time.
Honestly, It's the best ORM I've ever used. It stays out of your way and it
doesn't surprise you. It's very easy to set up.

I'm surprised it hasn't gained more popularity. Cool Storage is the reason I
haven't kept up on EF and the changes to ADO.NET. Bonus: it works with Oracle
and other non MSFT databases. Bonus++: It's open source.

~~~
vyrotek
Very, uh, cool. I'll have to check out Cool Storage. How does it handle eager
loading One-to-Many relationships? Such as, an Order has multiple Products and
my query selects 3 Orders for a customer. Will those Products come pre-
populated? A big issue I have with LinqToSQL and EF is the double/triple/n db
dipping that can occur when trying to fill a complex entity.

~~~
pragmatic
I believe by default they are all loaded in one step. You can use the [Lazy]
attribute if you want to lazy load instead.

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xpaulbettsx
(Disclaimer: MS Employee) - this release is actually pretty cool; you can
create your models as regular classes and collections (with a very small
number of annotations), and EF will create a schema on-the-fly, and new up
MS's version of a Sqlite3 database as soon as the first request comes in.

Really great for F/OSS web projects on the MS stack since you don't have to
perform the completely asinine step #1 of contributing, "Set up a SQL Express
instance..."

~~~
MichaelGG
Not trying to bash the work that the EF team has done, but with things like
not having enum support, which is something I view as so simple and trivial
(even Linq-to-SQL does it), it makes the entire thing seem not so serious.

~~~
nigelsampson
Agreed, the lack of enum support drives me nuts. Hell I wrote an ORM in the
.Net 1.1 days that had it.

Still I'm glad they've released this, more "out of band" releases from
Microsoft are a good thing. When frameworks and features aren't tied to Visual
Studio releases mean the individual teams can iterate a lot quicker (the MVC
and Silverlight teams are good examples).

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euroclydon
It's great that there are plenty of options in the ORM space. I still use
Castle's Active Record for larger projects, and EF Code First for small ones.
I spent about a year learning to use NHibernate via CAR, and it was time well
spent.

I catch glimpses that indicate EF has most of the features in NH, but I
wouldn't want to learn another ORM in depth -- there's just no value in it.

