If you are following my blog or watched me present, you know I believe that Entity Framework will be a significant technology for .NET developers (even if EF v1 at times is incredibly annoying!). However we have been hampered by the lack of books available. I am waiting patiently for Julie to have her book published – except I have not been waiting patiently at all! Hence I was really pleased to discover this morning that Joydip now has his book in print, ready to buy in the UK. This covers off Entity Framework and a single chapter on Data Services (which work together great). This is a short read (which I tend to like) at 210 pages. Looking fwd to it dropping through the letterbox.

It covers:

  • Chapter 1, Introducing the ADO.NET Entity Framework, introduces the reader to the basics of ADO.NET EF, why it is useful, and its features and benefits. It also covers designing the Payroll Database that is used by the model application developed in subsequent chapters.
  • Chapter 2, Getting started with the Entity Framework, discusses how to get started with EF – creating the Payroll Entity Data Model (EDM) and mapping the model to the database and writing a program to query data.
  • Chapter 3, Entities, Relationships, and the Entity Data Model, gives a detailed explanation of entities, relationships, and of each of the sections of the Payroll EDM.
  • Chapter 4, Working with Stored Procedures in the Entity Data Model, explains how we can map stored procedures in the EDM and use them in our applications.
  • Chapter 5, Working with Entity Client and Entity SQL, discusses the ESQL query language and how to work with the Entity Client provider. It also explains the differences between Entity SQL and Transact SQL.
  • Chapter 6, Working with LINQ to Entities, includes a detailed discussion on using Language Integrated Query (LINQ) to retrieve data from Entities, with lots of code examples.
  • Chapter 7, Working with Objects Services, provides a detailed discussion on the Object Services Layer and its powerful features for reading, inserting, editing, deleting, and serializing objects and binding them to data controls.
  • Chapter 8, Working with ADO.NET Data Services, provides an introduction to ADO.NET Data Services and using them with EDM to perform CRUD operations.