About this Book
Entity Framework is the Microsoft-recommended tool to read and persist data inside a relational database. With this software, Microsoft has entered the O/RM market with a reliable product that significantly eases data access development.
This book will take you from the apprentice to the master level in the Entity Framework technology. You can think of this book as a guided tour through Entity Framework features and best practices. When you have finished reading Entity Framework 4 in Action, you’ll be able to confidently design, develop, and deliver applications that rely on Entity Framework to persist business data.
This book was written for all Entity Framework developers, whether you develop small home applications or the largest enterprise systems. Everything from home DVD library applications to e-commerce solutions that interact with many heterogeneous systems and store lots of information can benefit from Entity Framework, and this book will show you how.
This book will walk you through the creation of an application from scratch, and will show you how to keep improving it with various Entity Framework features. This Entity Framework tour will cover all of Framework’s features over the course of nineteen chapters, grouped in four parts.
In part 1 we introduce the basics of the O/RM pattern and show you the fundamentals of Entity Framework as we create the foundation for an application.