About the book

Written by: Joydip Kanjilal
Pages: 228
Publisher: Packt
ISBN-10: 1847195229
ISBN-13: 978-1847195227

This book aims at providing an overview of the main features of Entity Framework, an Object/Relational Mapper framework by Microsoft.

The word “Tutorial” in the title emphasizes that a good portion of the book is actually a step-by-step guide on how to perform common tasks using the tools that ship with the framework. This means you’ll find screenshots and detailed instructions on how to interact with the various Designers in Visual Studio.

The book is about 200 pages long. It’s not the definitive word on the subject, and you won’t find details on the framework’s inner workings. Instead, you’ll find all you need to know to get up and running with Entity Framework in a short time.

The author starts with a discussion on the architecture of Entity Framework. There’s a good overview of the various layers that make up the Entity Data Model. I’ve appreciated the author’s intent of laying the groundwork and providing all the necessary terminology. There’s also a nice glossary at the end of the chapter.

The book is organized as an alternation between discussions on the framework’s features and tutorials. The final chapter is a nice introduction to the ADO.NET Data Services – a framework for building RESTful services over an Entity Data Model or a custom data source.

The chapters that cover the concepts and features of Entity Framework are accompanied by diagrams and a good amount of code. I’ve found this portion of the book easy to read and understand; and very accessible to non-English readers. Overall, it doesn’t dig deep into the framework – but it’s a clear and concise introduction to its main and most used features.

The tutorials are truly step-by-step instructions. Screenshots are big and the quality is good. By following them, you’ll build a payroll demo application that showcases the main Entity Framework’s features.

If you need to quickly get up and running with Entity Framework, try this book. If you are searching for the definitive word on the subject, you might want to hold on – this book has different goals.

My rating: 3.75 / 5

About Alessandro Gallo

Alessandro "Garbin" Gallo is a Microsoft MVP in the Visual ASP/ASP.NET category and a .NET developer/consultant. He is a contributor for the Ajax Control Toolkit project, owned by Microsoft. Alessandro won the Grand Prize at the "Mash-it-up with ASP.NET AJAX" contest held by Micr... This author has published 23 articles on DotNetSlackers. View other articles or the complete profile here.