Entity Framework Under Fire
If like me you spend some of your spare time keeping tabs on what is going on in the .Net blogosphere you wont have failed to notice the current drama surrounding the new Microsoft Entity Framework.
To cut a long story short: a bunch of know-it-alls have got their knickers in a twist over some of the features excluded from version 1 ( VERSION 1!!!) of the framework. I think, knowing the nature in which Microsoft evolves their products nowadays ( look at how different the Ajax Framework is now compared to the first release ) this really is a storm in a teacup. The most common sense, pragmatic, real world view of the state of play is this one by Ward Bell. For me, he hits the nail on the head.
In my opinion there is a real attitude problem on display from the petitioners, who I suspect have a vested interest in seeing EF fail or look half thought out. I’ve had a long term disregard for 99% of ORM tool vendors ( the excellent Subsonic framework excluded ) because of the ‘I-know-best-don’t-even-try-to-question-or-understand’ tactics they use to retain a foothold in the marketplace.
I’m a big fan of this quote from the highly recommended book - The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt & David Thomas:
“Critically Analyse What You Read and Hear. Don’t be swayed by vendors, media hype, or dogma. Analyse information in terms of you and your project.”
Bottom line: Make your own mind up about Entity Framework, about if it’s right for you and your projects.
My name is Jon Paul Davies and I work for 
June 28th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
[...] to Jon Paul Davies for quoting the Pragmatic Programmer. “Critically Analyse What You Read and Hear. Don’t be swayed by [...]
July 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Thanks for this Jon, I was initially really happy to see EF, then horrified that it was already being rubbished by “the experts” which then had me thinking maybe I should use nHibernate or something else. My instincts told me that EF was the right way to go as its backed by Microsoft and baked into VS (well its Beta 1, but almost) and I also got the faint wiff of a dead rat from the “Vote of no confidence” camp. I think Ward sums it up nicely and as you point out this is V1.0 . Thinking about it my main issue with Msft these days is that they are just bombarding the dev community with new technology and its impossible to keep up, combined with a pretty crappy release sync with the dev tools (WPF support in VS2008 comes to mind). I would like to see a period of “bedding in” from Msft where they stabilise the stuff thats out there and try and help the dev community get to grips with this stuff. Anyway, good stuff and thanks