I’ve been programming for a while and have used LINQ-To-SQL and LINQ-To-Entities before (although when using entities it has been on a Entity/Table 1-1 relationship – ie not much different than L2SQL)
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about Inversion of Control, Unit of Work, POCO and repository patterns and would like to use this methodology in my new applications.
Where I’m struggling is finding a clear, concise beginners guide for EF4 which doesn’t assume knowledge of EF1.
The specific questions I need answered are:
Code first / model first? Pros/cons in regards to EF4 (ie what happens if I do code first, change the code at a later date and need to regenerate my DB model – Does the data get preserved and transformed or dropped?)
Assuming I’m going code-first (I’d like to see how EF4 converts that to a DB schema) how do I actually get started? Quite often I’ve seen articles with entity diagrams stating “So this is my entity model, now I’m going to …” – Unfortunately, I’m unclear if they’re created the model in the designer, saved it to generate code then stopped any further auto-code generation -or- They’ve coded (POCO)? classes and the somehow imported them into the deisgner view?
I suppose what I really need is an understanding of where the “magic” comes from and how to add it myself if I’m not just generating an EF model directly from a DB.
I’m aware the question is a little vague but I don’t know what I don’t know – So any input / correction / clarification appreciated.
Needless to say, I don’t expect anyone to sit here and teach me EF – I’d just like some good tutorials/forums/blogs/etc. for complete entity newbies
These articles might be of interest…the series really gets into the advantages and disadvantages of a POCO approach.
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In these articles the author mentions future articles that describe best practices in implementing Repository and Unit of Work patterns, but I can’t find them. These articles are well written and I’d like to read more from this author.