I hadn’t noticed this before.

If you have a stored procedure that is mapped to an entity such as "GetCustomersSince" which returns Customer entities, the command is executed when you create the query, not, like with normal queries, when the data is first needed.

In case that sentence was too convoluted…

Here is a LINQ to Entities query (the same is true for LINQ to anything and also for Object Services (context.CreateQuery))

Dim query= From c In context.Customers Select c

For Each cust in Query  <– command is executed here

‘do something

End For

But when calling a function import:

dim custs= From c in context.GetCustomersSince(New Date("2008","01","01")) <–command is executed here

For Each cust in custs

‘do something

End For

Looking at the code gen for the function I can see that ObjectContext.ExecuteFunction is called.

I’m definitely interested in what people have to say about Danny’s post so I have subscribed to the Bloglines citations of it:

http://www.bloglines.com/search?q=bcite:blogs.msdn.com/dsimmons/archive/2008/05/17/why-use-the-entity-framework.aspx

RSS

Don’t forget the comment thread in Danny’s post as well.

Not surprisingly, the folks who have already made it clear that EF is way too data-centric for them are up in arms and there are some very interesting discussions in their blogs (as well as the comment threads).

I’m not sure if I would compare the investment I am making in understanding how EF works and writing a whole book to share what I’ve learned to being brainwashed by a "shiny brochure on your desk". Nor do I feel like a "cheerleader" or "parrot". But… whatever… (lame response? Yep! But it’s all I have time (or patience) for).