Mapping Help in the EDM Designer

Data Access

The mapping details window that displays the mappings between an entity and database table(s) is pretty straightforward.

When you join two related tables in a Table Per Hierarchy inheritance things can get a little confusing when it comes to the mappings for inherited properties.

But did you know that the Mapping Details window uses the Properties window to help?

Here are two entities in a TPH hierarchy.

mappingA

Customer inherits Contact. Customer maps to a Customers table which uses “ContactID” as its primary key. It entity no longer has its own ContactID property though because it inherits ContactID from the Contact entity.

Here is the Mapping Details window for the Customer entity.

 mappingB

The column on the left displays the database columns while those on the right show which entity property the column is mapped to.

Before I created the hierarchy, Customers.ContactID mapped to a ContactID property in the Customer entity. But that’s gone now. Might be a bit confusing because it says ContactID there still.

If you have the properties window open though it will show you the properties of whatever column or property you have selected.

Click the ContactID in the Value/Property table and you can see that it’s mapping to the Contact.ContactID property, as it should since Customer.ContactID no longer exists.

 mappingD

You can also see properties of selected database columns which are read In the store schema. Here, I have selected the ContactID column on the left. The property window shows that it is from the ContactID column defined in the BreakAwayModel.Store.Customers which is the schema representation of what’s in the database.

mappingC

And now for the footnote. I just discovered this today in VS2010 but before I blogged about this great new feature (really it can be helpful if you need it) I opened up VS2008 and discovered its been there all along. 🙂 I just happened to have the Properties window open today when clicking around in the mapping and noticed something changing.

Vermont IT Jobs: .NET Developer in Downtown Burlington

Jobs

Applications Engineer

Aurora North Software, Inc.

Burlington-based software development & consulting company offers an opportunity to rapidly advance your skillset using the latest MS technologies to develop and implement core systems at some of the country’s most prestigious law firms.  Projects include product integration, workflow processing, business intelligence, and SharePoint development.

Requires a minimum 2-5 years experience with full development life cycle, .NET development experience, familiarity with C# and VB.net, and solid abilities with MS development tools.    Preference given to applicants experienced in building enterprise SharePoint applications. 

If you have a passion for perpetual improvement, enjoy a diversity of projects and autonomy, and play well with others, we’d love to hear from you.  Please send your resume and cover letter to: careers@auroranorthsoftware.com

This position is on-site and there is free on-site parking.

Vermont IT Jobs: Sr. Security Analyst in Montpelier

Jobs

Senior Security Analyst

Summary

This position is responsible for advancing the Information Systems program within the company by assisting the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to plan, develop, and monitor administrative, physical, and technical safeguards for the company’s Information Assets.

Key Responsibilities

  • Under Direction of CISO, establish  and maintain company-wide information security policies, standards and procedures
  • Manage the Information Security Program Office (ISPO) with oversight of all security initiatives for cost, time and quality
  • Coach and mentor directors, managers and associates on specific technologies that allow secure business growth
  • Evaluate, recommend, select, and manage the implementation of proven industry accepted solutions to enhance the company’s core security capabilities in the areas of infrastructure, access management, networking, databases, servers, etc.
  • Lead and direct in cooperation with the Business Continuity Planning Department, the planning and implementation of the company’s IT Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery efforts to ensure that the required technical service facilities can be resumed within required, and agreed, business timescales
  • Execute all stages of the problem determination and resolution process as it pertains to security incidents, breaches and problems.
  • Lead and direct the activities necessary to design, develop and implement a company-wide Security Awareness program.
  • Create information security risk assessment methodology and performs information risk assessments using the methodology.  Lead internal information security risk assessments to ensure proper resolution to security, risk, or compliance issues
  • Maintain expertise in the area of security, including trends, strategies, and products to ensure that the company’s information assets continue to be protected at the levels required by the business

Qualifications and Experience

  • Bachelor’s Degree in IT or Information Security
  • Knowledge of Information Security standards and frameworks
  • 3-5 years of direct Information Security experience ideally in regards to Risk Assessment, Metrics & Reporting, Education and Awareness and Incident Response
  • Excellent writing skills for drafting of policies, procedures and analytical summaries
  • Strong Microsoft Office skills
  • Excellent verbal communication skills, strong analytical, teamwork and organizational skills
  • Results driven individual who can handle multiple complex assignments, set and adjust priorities, rapidly engage new assignments based on criticality, all in a fast paced and often stressful environment, and with a timely and professional manner
  • Energetic and self motivated; enthusiastic and positive attitude.
  • Ability to think strategically, multi-task, and work effectively and efficiently with minimum direction in a team environment
  • Hold at least one professional certification, (e.g. CISA, CISSP) or willingness to obtain one.

Contact
Kim Coffin
FIT Solutions, LLC
"Providing IT Resources that FIT Your Business"
413-214-2552 (cell)
413-363-0204 (fax)
kcoffin@fitsolutions.us
www.fitsolutions.us

Hard Core EF4 Full-Day Workshop, June 24th, Stockholm

Data Access

 The date (Thursday, June 24th), the city (Stockholm) and the abstract are firm.

REGISTER HERE: http://www.dotnet4ever.se/ or directly at http://www.informator.se/utbildningar/seminarier/seminarier/hard-core-entity-framework-40.aspx

Now I have to wait for the person organizing this workshop on my behalf to provide registration details. This will be a public workshop.

I will update this blog post, write a new one and also tweet (twitter.com/julielerman) the details as soon as I have them. (They’re here now)

Hard Core EF4

Full Day of Advanced Entity Framework 4 Workshop with Julie Lerman

You’ve been working with Entity Framework 3.5 or maybe even Entity Framework 4, but are ready to take your EF4 code further. You’ve got nagging questions and wish you could just spend a day with an Entity Framework guru!

Now’s your chance! On June 24th Julie Lerman will be conducting a full day Advanced Entity Framework 4 workshop in Stockholm.

The day will focus on the benefits of EF4’s new POCO support.

You’ll learn the different ways that you can enable POCO support in Entity Framework

You’ll then see how to take advantage of the POCO support.

  • Customizing the code generation templates.
  • Using POCOS in WCF services without pulling your hair out to deal with change tracking
  • Building smarter architectures with repositories, Unit of Work
  • Unit testing with fake contexts and fake data without hitting the database.

½ day of demos + ½ day of Q&A with the pro= 
1 day of Hard Core Entity Framework 4.

REGISTER at http://www.dotnet4ever.se

or directly on informator’s website at:
http://www.informator.se/utbildningar/seminarier/seminarier/hard-core-entity-framework-40.aspx

[Not in Vermont] IT Jobs: Sharepoint/ASP.NET Dev + Winforms C# Dev in Western Mass

Jobs

Two .NET jobs in Western Mass from a recruiter, contact info below

Requirement #1:

Our client is looking for the best engineers in the world, and then we give them the opportunity to excel. Our light, scrum-based process keeps you focused on delivering functionality that our customers need. We try to do things right (unit tests, continuous builds, bug tracking, etc) and we’re looking for others who work this way too.

Primary Responsibilities

· Develop SharePoint applications in ASP.NET with a heavy dose of AJAX and JavaScript

Qualifications

· Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or other technical field

· 5-7 years of experience in delivering ASP.NET applications

· Experience delivering fast & efficient JavaScript based web clients

· Excellent C# and JavaScript skills and experience writing AJAX based websites in ASP.NET. Experience with ExtJS, jQuery, or YUI is a plus.

· Experience building web-based user interfaces (comfortable with web standards like HTML, CSS, and ASP.NET specific techniques like user controls and master pages)

· Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

· Experience developing for SharePoint is a major plus.

· Salary Range: 70-95K

You must be willing to relocate to the Western Massachusetts area and be authorized to work in the United States

Requirement #2:

Our client is in the Financial / Banking Industry.  They have an immediate need for (7) .NET, C# developers with 5+ yrs Financial or Banking Applications experience.  Mid and senior level direct hire positions are available.  

Summary:

· Strong C# with heavy Winforms.  (Web Forms is ok, however Winforms is preferred)

· SQL Server 2008

· Excellent Communication Skills

· Agile Methodology environment.  Agile experience preferred, however not required.

· Must have worked within the Microsoft Toolset on an N-Tier application

· Must enjoy working in a collaborative team environment

· MS-TS (Microsoft Team Server Foundation) is a plus

· Must be US Citizen or Green Card Holder

· Must be willing to relocate to Western, MA.

· Salary Range:  65-90K

 

Contact:

Kim Coffin

FIT Solutions, LLC

"Providing IT Resources that FIT Your Business"

413-214-2552 (cell)

413-363-0204 (fax)

kcoffin@fitsolutions.us

www.fitsolutions.us

Late Spring Snow Storm

Vermont

Yesterday morning it started snowing and didn’t stop until about 3pm this afternoon. Heavy wet spring snow that accumulated to about a foot where we live. Luckily we didn’t lose any trees but the power’s been out for quite some time.

Here are some pics from the crazy storm.

From the road. See those shrubs in front of the fence? I had just unburied them.

IMG_3408

3 hours later, those same shrubs. They are okay now.

IMG_3407

Our magnificent, gigantic pines

IMG_3405

Sampson and his pal Sadie

IMG_3415

After the storm

IMG_3419

News about Programming Entity Framework 2nd Edition

Book

Programming Entity Framework 2nd Edition (based on the RTM of VS2010/.NET 4.0) is currently available on Safari Rough Cuts at http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596807252. At this point most of the chapters are there. You’ll find 2-23. Note that chapter 4 will be broken into 4 and 5 in the final edition. I changed the chapter numbering after chapter 16 to accommodate this which is why there is no chapter 17. Chapters 24 is about n-Tier CLient applications using an WPF example and chapter 25 is about n-Tier web apps with ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET WebForms examples both using the repository built in Chapter 22. Chapter 1 will be introductory as it was in the first edition and Chapter 26 will wrap up some loose ends.

The book is now going through copy editing and technical editing so if you read the rough cuts and find a comma missing, don’t worry about it. If you happen to find something really wrong…a coding boo-boo or a misused term (I’m famous for switching inherits and implements) leave a note in the online feedback form on O’Reilly’s site so we can be sure to correct it before the final cut.

This is a complete rewrite of the book and includes not only the new features of Entity Framework, but chapters on unit testing, building repositories and even using Entity Framework in ASP.NET MVC applications. I’ve been working extra hard to be sure the book is current, not just a copy of the first edition.

We’re hoping to have the book in print by mid-July.

You can subscribe to the Rough Cuts, pre-order the final edition on O’Reilly or on Amazon. There will also be a variety of digital versions of the final book

Querying Literals in Entity SQL

Data Access

Entity SQL might surprise you if you are building query expressions with some non-string types.

I’ve blogged about this before with the DateTime literal after trying to use a string to represent the date in my query as I’m used to with TSQL. Here is a snip from that post:

SELECT VALUE BAModel.Contact(c.ContactID,c.FirstName,c.LastName,c.Title,c.AddDate,c.ModifiedDate)
FROM dbo.Contact as c
WHERE c.AddDate>="1/1/2007"

I was trying to emulate T-SQL here but I need a date, not a string. I thought that without a function I was hosed again, until I discovered Entity SQL’s Literals and rewrote the query successfully this way.

SELECT VALUE BAModel.Contact(c.ContactID,c.FirstName,c.LastName,c.Title,c.AddDate,c.ModifiedDate)
FROM dbo.Contact as c
WHERE c.AddDate>= DATETIME’2007-01-1 00:00′

I’ve had  number of emails recently with people using Entity SQL and having problems similar to this, most commonly with decimals & doubles (e.g., 123.24). First I will point you to the MSDN documentation page on Literals for Entity SQL.

The clues to expressing the queries are in this doc, however they are REALLY easy to miss.

Let me highlight a few of these with some emphasis on the specific clues:

Integer

Integer literals can be of type Int32 or Int64. An Int32 literal is a series of numeric characters. An Int64 literal is series of numeric characters followed by an uppercase L.

Decimal

A fixed-point number (decimal) is a series of numeric characters, a dot (.) and another series of numeric characters followed by an uppercase "M".

Float, Double

A double-precision floating point number is a series of numeric characters, a dot (.) and another series of numeric characters possibly followed by an exponent. A single-precisions floating point number (or float) is a double-precision floating point number syntax followed by the lowercase f.

Notice those “followed by” notes now? 🙂

So, this ESQL expression will fail:

select p.amount from BAEntities.Payments as p where p.amount=125.25

The exception message is “The argument types ‘Edm.Decimal’ and ‘Edm.Double’ are incompatible for this operation. Near WHERE predicate, line 1, column 61.”

The correct way to express this query is to be sure the decimal is followed by an uppercase "M".

select p.amount from BAEntities.Payments as p where p.amount=125.25M

That query works like a charm.

Pictures from VTdotNET VS2010 Launch

VTdotNetFeed

Vermont.NET’s April meeting coincided with the Visual Studio 2010 launch so we had our own launch event!

With cake…

IMG_3373

It was our biggest meeting attendance ever with 60 signed up and 56 signed in at the door.

Four people presented…”some of our favorite things about VS2010 and .NET 4.0”. The presenters were Victor Castro, Eric Hall, Rob Hale and myself.

IMG_3374

IMG_3375

Instead of the usual pizza, we had a feast of sandwiches, rollups, chips and veggies & dip, all very generously provided by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Not just paid for but ordered, picked up and delivered by our favorite GMCR gal, Marlena Farnham. This was one of the things that made the meeting special.

IMG_3378

IMG_3376

IMG_3377

Eric Hall got the primo slice of cake!

IMG_3379

I started the Vermont.NET group in February of 2002. We’ve been meeting monthly for over 8 years. That’s nearly 100 meetings. And I have to say this was the best one ever!  I just love the Vermont.NET community.

Some post-VS2010 Launch Resources

VTdotNetFeed

Here are some useful links related to the Vermont .NET VS2010 launch meeting on Monday night with our RECORD Breaking attendance! 🙂

MSDN Visual Studio Developer Center: msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio

VS2010 Comparison of various SKUs: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products

VS2010 Trial Downloads: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/download

Great links from MicrosoftFeed.Com

Moving to Visual Studio 2010 e-book from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=12A6DE81-C633-4F2C-A35F-CEA6FE772712&displaylang=en

What’s new in VS2010 Video (thanks Paul Harriman for this link)  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ee958386.aspx

What’s new in .NET 4 (MSDN Docs): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171868(v=VS.100).aspx

What’s new in VS2010 (languages, IDE, Editor, etc) (MSDN Docs)  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386063(v=VS.100).aspx
 
 

Visual Studio 2010 Launch Keynote and other cool stuff from the launch: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/watch-it-live

Note that if you watch the keynote video, the first 1/2 is interviews and more, but there’s a marker pointing to where the keynote starts.keynote