Some of the best info about Entity Framework is buried in the forums.

I wanted to surface a few important things.

1) From Danny Simmons on January 28th responding to a question about RTM, while Danny is forced to repeat yet again "first half of 2008" he drops some great info about another build to play with before then:

"What I can tell you, though, is that there will be another beta/ctp before the final release.  Sadly I don't have a firm date for that yet either.  We'll let you know just as soon as we can."

2) From Noam Ben-Ami, who is the PM for the Tools, in response to a question about creating an EDM and then generating database objects from that:

"Despite our best efforts, this feature does not look like it will make the first release of the designer. We are working on this for a future release. In the meantime, we are looking for a way to release some sample code that will demonstrate this functionality and which you'll be able to modify for your own needs/database platform."

I mentioned the second point in my upcoming DotNetRocks interview, though I was having a hard time remembering which feature I had read this news about. My memory, it turns out, did serve me right although I was very hesitant for fear of misspeaking.

It would be great if this information were more readily available (poke poke), which is why I'm blogging it!

Earlier today I recorded a DotNetRocks show with Carl and Richard where  I got to go on and on and on about Entity Framework for a whole hour (which flew by in what felt like 10 minutes). Richard's heavy DBA background made for some really interesting questions.

One issue that really stands out is that a lot of dbas are aware of EF and LINQ to SQL and the fact that they do dynamic query generation. Many of them ,however, do not know that EF and LINQ to SQL can also be wired up to use stored procedures for DML and straight queries as well as views. Because of this, I have even been witness to SQL experts telling DBAs not to let their developers use EF or LINQ to SQL. Pablo Castro had a long talk with Greg Low who is a SQL guru (and MVP and RD and a reallllly nice guy and a very involved community leader that I originally met through INETA many years ago) and asked a lot of these questions on a recent podcast on SQL Down Under.

Clearly the message needs to be spread!

(Unlike the interesting and untrue LINQ to SQL rumor that was spreading this morning.)

The DotNetRocks show will "air" on Feb 26th.

Carl and I also talked about doing a series of EF "sessions" for dnrTV.

I can definitely relate to Dan's glee at learning that he would be interviewing Bill Gates for Channel 9.

From Technical Connection in Burlington:

Technical Connection has been retained to identify candidates for a junior to mid level  C# developer for long term employment.  A big part of this opportunity will be working with Sharepoint web portal development.  Salary and benefits are competitive and interviews are being scheduled now.  We encourage readers of your blog who are considering taking the next step in their career to contact us as soon as possible. 

A great video of a local fundrasier - over a thousand people jumping into the very icy Lake Champlain on a cold day

I haven't tried it out yet, but there's never an end to needing tools to help save your butt when you are trying to code XSLT. This one is from Microsoft's XML Tools team.

I have a few rules when I'm sick including no coffee, minimal caffeine, no sugar and no dairy. I had a bad chest cold for 3 weeks, and followed that rule pretty well. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm trying to see how long I can go without coffee. I still crave it but eventually that will go away too. So far I have survived!  The challenge will be tomorrow since our user group meeting is right across the road from a Starbucks! And of course, my fave is latte's (I blame Michele for turning me on to their Vanilla Lattes ;) which is coffee AND sugar AND dairy all together. I'd call that an addiction.

I can't say I have had no caffeine though since I am now drinking English Breakfast tea and plenty of Green Tea too.

I am, like to-oh-tally suscribed to the WebDevTools blog, dude! Here's why

[A New DevLife Post]

I seem to frequently point people to the technical story of MySpace as they went through the painful evolution that eventually led them to have a serious ASP.NET website to manage what is one of the highest traffic websites in the world. Even if it's not ASP.NET that you  choose, it's a good lesson in planning ahead. Read more...

[A New DevLife Post]

Jessica Fosler has a very funny YouTube video of a Sesame Street Cookie Monster clone interacting with a "totally indestructable" machine.

She also has some great WPF UI posts that I need to dig into ...

I'll be doing a DotNetRocks show with Carl and Richard about the Entity Framework. Danny Simmons was on DNR last April so it's definitely time for an update!

Now that the Team System's Unit Testing tools are built in to VS2008 Pro, many of us will finally get a chance to take a look at it.

Luckily I know some VSTS experts who aren't too far away and we have Sarah Cameron coming down from Montreal to teach us all about how to use the built-in Unit Testing in VS2008 on Monday. We have a bunch of NUnit users in the group and they are also curious about how the Microsoft version stacks up. Interestingly this session is drawing out a lot of people who have never been to a VTdotNET meeting before! Go Sarah!

Read more at www.vtdotnet.org!

Date: 02/11/08 Speaker: Sarah Cameron (InCycle Software ) -- Location: VT Tech, Williston Campus Topic: Unit Testing in Visual Studio 2008 VS2008 Pro now includes the Unit Testing features that were previously only available in the VSTS sku. Sarah Cameron, a Visual Studio Team System expert from InCycle Software (www.incyclesoftware.com), will demonstrate how to use and really benefit from Unit Testing in VS2008 using this built in tool.. Speaker Bio: Sarah Cameron is a consultant specializing in Visual Studio Team System, with experience on projects from inception to delivery following well-defined software processes. Sarah has been working as a consultant for Incycle Software (www.incyclesoftware.com) a Montreal based firm specializing in Team System consulting services. She has been assisting ISVs and larger corporations successfully plan and deploy Visual Studio Team System. She may be contacted at sarah.cameron@incyclesoftware.com

From Mad River's website this morning:

POWDER CENTRAL at Mad River Glen today as we picked up a solid 12" overnight. This on top of the 8-10" yesterday, on top of the 4-6" from the day before that so we will be approaching EPIC skiing conditions today on Gen. Stark Mountain. I was no math major but I think that like 2 feet in the past 3 days! It continues to dump snow vigorously and the best part is it should continue to do so all day with well over a foot total expected. Actually the best part really is that yet another big storm is winding up to wallop us again this weekend

So after a lifetime of learning how to ski on hard packed snow and ice (we're talking eastern skiing), I'm now having to learn how to ski in real powder. My skis are too skinny, that's for sure. But if I find powder that is a little fluffier, I'm turning like a champ. If it's too heavy I unexpectedly revert to the snowplow I learned when I was 6 years old.Well, at least it's a really soft landing when you fall. When my ego and my energy level fail me, I can always fall back on that old excuse: "ummm, I have to go home and get back to work!"

From TEKsystems 

These jobs are getting listed on thingamajob.com, but not all of them seem to be there yet. Here's a direct link to TEKsystem's listings.

Title                 Software Developer

Location:         Stowe

Number of openings:  3

Responsibilities: 

Software Developers provide the technical expertise to create enhancements, code corrections, and new functionality.   Software Developers fulfill both the support and development programming roles and work in teams with other developers, support, QA and management when appropriate.

Requirements

·      Minimum of 3 years experience developing and supporting software applications in a Windows environment.

·      Four year college degree or equivalent experience – Bachelor’s degree desired.

·      Able to learn and master new technology quickly and improve personal performance through continual self-study.

·      Desire to provide outstanding products and customer service.

·      Able to work on multiple projects simultaneously and to cope with diversity and complexity in a high-pressure, rapidly changing environment.

·      Strong interpersonal and team relationship skills and able to work well individually or as part of a team.

·      Demonstrated understanding of the following: Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 Server in conjunction with software development.

·      Experience utilizing one or more of the following:  SQL Server 2000/2005, .NET.

·      Ability to maintain high degree of confidentiality concerning development products.

·      Detailed knowledge of one or more SMS software products helpful (i.e., two or more years of installation, product management, or systems support experience) or able to thoroughly learn SMS software products.

·      Demonstrated technical writing ability and basic email skills.

·      Extremely detail oriented and dedicated to follow-through in all work with a focus on project quality, completeness, and thoroughness.

Title                 Senior Software Developer

Location:         Stowe

Number of openings:   2

Responsibilities: 

Senior Software Developers provide the technical expertise and leadership to create technical architectures and designs, enhancements, code corrections, and new functionality.   Senior Software Developers fulfill both the support and development programming roles and work in teams with other developers, support, QA and management when appropriate.

Requirements

·      Minimum of 5-7 years experience developing and supporting web based applications in a Windows environment.

·      Four year college degree or equivalent experience – Bachelor’s degree desired.

·      Able to learn and master new technology quickly and improve personal performance through continual self-study.

·      Desire to provide outstanding products and customer service.

·      Able to work on multiple projects simultaneously and to cope with diversity and complexity in a high-pressure, rapidly changing environment.

·      Strong interpersonal and team relationship skills and able to work well individually or as part of a team.

·      Demonstrated understanding of the following: Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 Server in conjunction with software development.

·      Experience utilizing one or more of the following: SQL Server 2000/2005, .NET.

·      Ability to maintain high degree of confidentiality concerning development products.

·      Detailed knowledge of one or more SMS software products helpful (i.e., two or more years of installation, product management, or systems support experience) or able to thoroughly learn SMS software products.

·      Demonstrated technical writing ability and basic email skills.

·      Extremely detail oriented and dedicated to follow-through in all work with a focus on project quality, completeness, and thoroughness.

Contact

      Alicia Ferraro

One of the drawbacks with the partial postbacks in AJAX is that you can't go forward or back in your web browser to different states of the page created by the partial postbacks. Nor can you create a shortcut to one of the views.

The ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions has functionality in there to enable these scenarios. It's pretty simple to pull off thanks to the new tools.

Jonathan Carter has a great post on how to use this. It's just #1 of more to come so keep tuned. Jonathan is a new to Microsoft's Visual Studio Developer Platform and Evangelism team with the dream job of writing and speaking about all the cool things you can do in VS. You can tell by his post that he will be a great resource for us to learn new features.

I mentioned a few days ago that Matthieu Mezil will be presenting on Entity Framework at TechDays 2008 in Paris next week.

There are more at this conference!

• LINQ & Entity Framework: Fabrice Marguerie & Sebastien Ros
• ADO.NET Data Service: Mitsu FUruta & Pierre Lagarde
• There are also a bunch of LINQ talks - too many to list, in fact!

And there are more EF talks upcoming at other conferences as well!  (Including my own, of course )

DevWeek in London March 10-14:
 "Understanding the ADO.NET Entity Framework" (Mike Taulty)
 "Patterns of use with the new Entity Framework" (James Winters)
This looks like a great conference filled with a huge list of rock star speakers, although, oddly, it's all men. I wonder if that will impact female attendance (either positively, thanks to all those good looking, brainy guys or negatively, if they are afraid they will feel out of place.)

There don't seem to be any EF talks at VSLive for San Francisco or Orlando. Too bad.

Developer Summit 2008 April 9-11 in Stockholm
   Full Day Workshop on Entity Framework (by me Yay, I get to go to Sweden!)
   ADO.NET Data Services (by WCF & Web Services guru: Christian Weyer)
   Advanced Entity Framework: EDM in the Enterprise (by me)

DevConnections (April 20 - 23 Orlando) has a whole Data Access track now!
   Full Day Workshop on Entity Framework (by me) on April 20th
   During the conference Proper:
   On Microsoft Day, 2 EF sessions, an Astoria Session and a guidance session on choosing from the myriad data access tools
  On the third party days, 2 EF sessions by John Papa, 1 by me and 1 by Kathleen Dollard (and additional ADO.NET sessions as well!). I'll also be doing a session on ADO.NET Data Services in the ASP Connections track.

DevTeach (May 12-15 Toronto)
   Intro to Entity Framework (Barry Gervin)
   An Advanced EF session and a data access guidance session by me

If you know of any others, send me a note and I'll list it!

One of the major accomplishments of EF Beta3 was that the performance of materializing objects through Object Services (that means with Linq to Entities or with Entity SQL) was improved significantly. So significantly that  they are almost comparable with querying through EntityClient which streams data into a datareader.

I did a number of experiments that I hadn't blogged about yet but did ask on the forums [EF: Best way to compare apples to apples when comparing perf of materialized objects vs datareader?] where I learned that ViewGeneration was the most time consuming part of the query process.

In the end, I had found this when performing the same query with LINQ to Entities, with EntityClient and with ADO.NET after separating the ViewGeneration time out in order to do fair comparisons. You can use EDMGen to pre-compile a query so that the expense of ViewGeneration becomes negligible at runtime.

• ViewGeneration: ranges around 1110 milliseconds
• Iterate through Materialized Objects: 14 to 15 ms
• Iterate EDM shaped data through datareader: 17 to 18 ms
• Iterated sqlclient datareader (classic ado.net): about 4 ms

BUT! Even better, Brian Dawson has written an extensive blog post about performance in Entity Framework: Exploring the Performance of the ADO.NET Entity Framework - Part 1. The post is filled with charts and graphs and is very enlightening. Brian even has a pie chart showing ViewGeneration as 56% of the time for performing a query.

The post digs very deeply into the query and object materialization pipeline, which, to someone like me, is dangerously close to pillow talk!

And it's only Part 1!

Matthieu Mezil is presenting on Entity Framework and LINQ (and VSTO) at next week's first (?) .NET event in Paris: TechDays 2008.

I wanted to see what else was going on and found the website (by BrainSonic) and boy is this a fantastic Silverlight implementation. Even if you don't know French, I highly recommend checking out the website, if for no other reason than to be inspired!

This is just but a small tidbit. After searching for Mezil, it spun (literally) these three items on to the calendar.

There's more, but I'll let you go play with it yourself.

Matthieu has been building up his EF expertise as well as using the forums as a means to challenge himself to learning more and sharing what he's learned.

Congrats to Jim Wooley, Fabrice Marguerie and Steve Eichert! And THANKS for writing it. It's been a long haul! I have really been anticipating this book!