LINQ Learning Guide: LINQ to Entities

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LINQ Quick Start    LINQ and Visual Studio 2008's new language features    LINQ Providers    LINQ and Web applications    LINQ to Objects    LINQ to XML    LINQ to SQL    LINQ to DataSet    LINQ to Entities    Third-party LINQ Implementations    VISIT OUR OTHER LEARNING GUIDES

LINQ to Entities

LINQ to Entities is a LINQ implementation that queries objects created by the ADO.NET Entity Framework, which provides an Entity Data Model and services that help programmers define and interact with data at a more conceptual level.

From here, you can move on to the final section of the LINQ Learning Guide, which demonstrates the extensibility of LINQ with a list of implementations for querying data from NHibernate, LLBLGen Pro and SharePoint, among others.

LINQ to Entities overview and LINQ and the Entity Data Model (Microsoft)
These brief articles introduce programmers to the main LINQ to Entities concepts.

LINQ to Entities programming guide (Microsoft)
As Microsoft puts it, "This section provides conceptual information and examples for programming with LINQ to Entities." Topics include common tasks and standard query operators.

Supported and unsupported LINQ to Entities methods (Microsoft)
Some of LINQ's standard query operators are supported in LINQ to Entities. Some are not. The resources herein distinguish between the two.

Sorting out LINQ and Entity Framework for Data Access (Julie Lerman)
This post touches upon the LINQ implementations, but it devotes most of its attention to LINQ to Entities and the Entity Framework. "The key to the framework is a set of three schema files," Lerman says -- one to describe the conceptual layer of business entities, a second to describe the schema of a database and a third to map between the first two.

Video: Chatting about LINQ and ADO.NET Entities (Microsoft)
Here Anders Hejlsberg and Sam Druker offer some thoughts on LINQ and on the ADO.NET Entity Framework.

Microsoft's data access strategy (Mike Pizzo)
Here an architect in the company's data programmability group offers an overview of the ADO.NET Entity Framework and how it relates to LINQ. A brief comparison of LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities is provided as well.

LINQ to Entities as an ORM (Jeremy Miller)
This blogger, writing from the MVP Summit in 2007, indicates that, as an object-relational mapping tool, LINQ to Entities doesn't quite do it for him. "We've already got a dozen+ workable solutions for datacentric application building," he says. "I wish they'd delivered a solution upfront for Domain Driven Design to differentiate it more from LINQ to SQL."

Introducing LINQ to relational data (Microsoft)
This white paper compares and contrasts LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities, identifying the correct scenarios for using each.

How LINQ to Entities and LINQ to SQL differ (Kevin Hoffman)
This article offers a handy comparison chart, based on which the article concludes that LINQ to Entities work well if one craves "insulation and loose coupling from the underlying database schema" as well as entity inheritance and composition.

LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities and Occam's Razor (Ian Cooper)
This blogger is concerned that LINQ to Entities is "overcomplex for many needs" and suggests that some of what it supports ought to be baked into LINQ to SQL. "Do not force us to swallow the whole LINQ to Entities pill, just to get support for mutliple backends. This is not a reasonable decision," Cooper contends. (Occam's Razor is a theory stipulating that the simplest solution is, or ought to be, the best solution.)