The relative simplicity of Linq-To-Sql as well as all the criticism leveled at version 1 of Entity Framework (especially, the vote of no confidence) convinced me to go with Linq-To-Sql "for the time being". Now that EF 4.0 is out, I wonder if it's time to start migrating over to it.
Questions:
Well, an endless debate :-)
Yes, I firmly believe EF4 is definitely ready for prime time - Microsoft has done an outstanding job of addressing just about all the annoyances and issues with the 1.0 release of EF.
It's ready for prime time - if you need all its features.
Linq-to-SQL is a pretty straightforward, no-frills, no-nonsense OR mapper - it maps one database table to one CLR object - and that's about it. Very basic, very direct - but a rather thin layer on top of SQL Server.
EF4 on the other hand is much more
So if you really need support for multiple databases (and not just SQL Server), or if you really need to be able to morph the database structure into a totally different object model - EF4 is a great place to start.
If you have a simple and straightforward little to medium-size app that only needs to be able to easily and quickly map tables 1:1 to objects, then I don't think EF4 comes even close in terms of simplicity and performance to Linq-to-SQL.
EF4 is great - and if you need its power - go with it!
But if your requirements are a lot less, it might just be overkill - continue to use Linq-to-SQL (I will) and be happy with it. I don't see any good reason to dump Linq-to-SQL - it's still totally available in .NET 4, has been blessed with some bug fixes and improvements even, and it will be around for at least another couple of years.
@marc_s, @DanM:
Please do not consider this post as an advertisement :) We just want to know the opinion of advanced users of Linq to Sql.
We have implemented the following improvements in our LinqConnect (Linq to Sql Server, Oracle, MySql, PostgreSql, SQLite):
- Complex Type
- Many to Many
- Batch update operations
- Recursive support in DataLoad options
- Query level preload (like Include in EF)
- TPT support (in LinqConnect 2.0)
We also plan to add support for second level cache.
Are these improvements valuable for you?
