Comments about O'Reilly Media Programming Entity Framework, 2nd Edition:

I initially tried to learn EF on my own using online tutorials and the MSDN forum. I realized very quickly that the tutorials were too superficial and I needed a strong foundation in EF before using it on production projects. This book provided all the foundation I needed to be able to quickly work with EF so that I could program against simple POCO's classes and let EF handle the communication with the backend. You can do this in such a way that you have complete separation of concerns so if you ever decide to switch from EF to another ORM product or ORM methodology -- your code remains unaffected. If you desire, you can control the interaction with the backend.

This book focuses on creating an EDMX model and working with that model and the XML behind the model. I, on the other hand, was interested only in Code First with and without existing databases (existing databases are 99% of my world). But the insight in how EF works made learning Code First a breeze. The book does have chapters that show you how to let EF to generate and work with POCO classes. However, I prefer to create my classes (domain model) myself.

In Code First, your POCO classes are the model. But whether you create an EDMX model or choose the Code First approach, once you compile and run the project everything that follows is exactly the same. It is important to learn the concepts in this book so you understand the implications of what you are doing and make the right choices in Code First.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Programming Entity Framework, 2nd Edition:

This 2nd Edition has been the best book on Entity Framework (EF) so far.

The book starts out in detail what EF is all about. Chapter 1 details what the technology is all about. It also gives overviews of technologies related to EF. I appreciated how the author updated this version and retracted what he called pain points from the 1st version of the book.

Chapters 2 - 8 go into detail about how to use EF. You learn what Entity Models are and how to query them. The author then teaches you how to leverage LINQ, specifically LINQ to Entities, to query the model. Next you learn about Entity SQL and how to query using it. As the book progresses you learn in Chapter 6 how to manage entity states and keep track of them. You learn about saving, inserting and deleting entities. In Chapter 7 the author show you how to use stored procedures with your Entity Model. By Chapter 8 you are implementing what the author calls "a More Real-World Model." He show you how to separate your EDM from your project so that it is more manageable.

In Chapter 9 you learn about data binding with Windows Forms and WPF Applications. Since I am not currently using these technologies I skipped on over to Chapter 11. In Chapter 11, the author shows you how to customize your entities using partial classes and partial methods. He also teaches you how to modify the code generation templates.

Chapter 13 does into creating and using POCO Entities.

Chapters 22 and 23 are a must read. Author shows you how to handle exceptions and how to plan for concurrency problems.

Finally in Chapter 27 you get to build two layered web applications using Web Forms and MVC.

Overall this book is a must have book that every developer should have in their library.