Dump Linq-To-Sql now that Entity Framework 4.0 has been released?

Question

The relative simplicity of Linq-To-Sql as well as all the criticism leveled at version 1 of Entity Framework (especially, the vote of no confidence) convinced me to go with Linq-To-Sql "for the time being". Now that EF 4.0 is out, I wonder if it's time to start migrating over to it.

Questions:

1. What are the pros and cons of EF 4.0 relative to Linq-To-Sql?
2. Is EF 4.0 finally ready for prime time?
3. Is now the time to switch over?

Answer 1

Well, an endless debate :-)

Yes, I firmly believe EF4 is definitely ready for prime time - Microsoft has done an outstanding job of addressing just about all the annoyances and issues with the 1.0 release of EF.

It's ready for prime time - if you need all its features.

Linq-to-SQL is a pretty straightforward, no-frills, no-nonsense OR mapper - it maps one database table to one CLR object - and that's about it. Very basic, very direct - but a rather thin layer on top of SQL Server.

EF4 on the other hand is much more

• a conceptual data model in your object space
• a storage data model on your database layer
• a mapping layer between the two
• database-independent

So if you really need support for multiple databases (and not just SQL Server), or if you really need to be able to morph the database structure into a totally different object model - EF4 is a great place to start.

If you have a simple and straightforward little to medium-size app that only needs to be able to easily and quickly map tables 1:1 to objects, then I don't think EF4 comes even close in terms of simplicity and performance to Linq-to-SQL.

EF4 is great - and if you need its power - go with it!

But if your requirements are a lot less, it might just be overkill - continue to use Linq-to-SQL (I will) and be happy with it. I don't see any good reason to dump Linq-to-SQL - it's still totally available in .NET 4, has been blessed with some bug fixes and improvements even, and it will be around for at least another couple of years.