Countdown to Software Architect 2009 – Day three was Entity Framework 4 day. I love it!

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This is one of a series of posts on my preparations for sessions on Azure and ORMs at Software Architect 2009.

The plan for day three:

Nearly got it all done. However I ended up spending more time on EF4 than I had planned as … there is a lot of it!

  • Gather up good posts and samples for EF 4 (will likely blog this out) DONE
  • Play with EF 4 as much as my day allows DONE
  • Revisit EF 4 deck post play DONE
  • And a late night re-read of the three Azure storage documents from way back (will add links in the next post) NOT DONE

The good bit:

One of the first things I did was gather up a “gazillion” links on Entity Framework 4.0 features - Entity Framework 4.0 Resources – documentation links, best blog posts and more. Useful for me and hopefully for others.

Next came the bit where I played with EF 4. Whilst it is still early days, I am loving it. If we had hit this bar for version 1.0, Entity Framework would have been accepted (by most) with open arms (Rather than have the Marmite Effect). Alas… we didn’t.

I did identify/confirm which features were architecturally impactful (which is the focus of my talk) and which were simply nice features.

I also discovered that LINQPad (which is frankly awesome) has a Beta version to work with VS2010 Beta 1 assemblies. I only did a small play but everything seemed fine, at least for what I will be using it for. I also spotted this post on using LINQPad with Azure which I might try if I get time.

The EF 4 deck is also looking much better. I need to add some diagrams and screen pics buts overall it is pretty close on flow and content.

Finally, I surprised myself by sticking with Windows XP Mode for VS2010 (and for LINQPad). It just was a bit more convenient to stay with my host Windows 7 given some work stuff I also had to do.

The bad bit:

Two blue screens! Yep… two blue screens! No idea why. Both times they came shortly after undocking the notebook.

And finally, the plan for day four (Thursday):

  • Produce final drafts of each deck and post them so delegates can check out what I’m covering.
  • Play, play, play with the technology.
  • Read, read, read
  • And… produce outline skeleton demo sequence

But I have a suspicion some work stuff is about to get in the way :-(