Entity Framework 4 at TechEd Europe – standing room only

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On Monday at 9am (9th Nov 2009) I presented a session on Entity Framework 4 to several hundred attendees at TechEd in Berlin (DEV305). I have presented EF to developers many times before but this was the first time I had shown the new EF 4 in any detail. I was really interested in the questions and feedback after the session. The tone was much more positive. Developers recognise that we are addressing their concerns with v1 and that v4 includes many very welcome improvements. They just want to get started using it. Which is very cool!

Hence I made a special effort to swing by the other EF4 session which took place the following day, again at 9am. This time it was delivered by Mike Flasko from the Data Services team.

Wow. 9am and the room was full.

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Not only was it full (as to be fair it was a smaller room than on Monday) but folks were watching the session through the windows at the back! True dedication.

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I also spotted Entity Framework turning up in other sessions. e.g. the ASP.NET Dynamic Data session that ended today had plenty of EF4 in the demos.

It is great to see EF 4 being received so well at last. Well done to the product team for acting on community feedback.

NB: Entity Framework 4 will ship with .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010 and is currently available in Beta 2 of those products (plus an additional download of CTP 2).