Entity Framework 3.5 or 4.0?

Question

I'm starting a new project and the client wants to use the Entity Framework for their business layer. They are currently using .NET Framework 3.5. Would it be worth it to upgrade to 4.0 for the Entity Framework? What are the significant changes between the two versions?

Answer 1

Entity 4.0 supports POCO (Plain Old CLR Objects), which is a big plus if you do model-first (as opposed to database-first) development such as Domain Driven Design.

Here is an article that compares Entity 1.0 to 4.0. Regarding 4.0, it states (and discuses) the following new features:

1. Persistence Ignorance
2. POCO (Plain Old CLR Object)
3. T4 Code Generation
4. Self-Tracking Entities
5. Model-First Development
6. FK Associations
7. Code-only