EF, where does it fit?
I've done a few app's using the 3.5 version of Entity Framework, and have an up coming 4.0 project where EF may or may not fit. I've had a few issues with EF though, I think probably because I had the wrong expectations.

What I expected was a lot more clever than what I got. I think it fitted well where the context was relatively short lived. It didn't work (as) well when the context was expected to live as long as the application. 

I found there was a lot of boiler plate code, and a lot of care needed to be taken when doing things like roll backs.

Finally I didn't get the feeling that it was using the connection efficiently and I didn't feel I had much control over when it did.


So where do you find EF fits and where does it not? As mentioned, it seems to me that short lived contexts will rock, long lived contexts with interactions between modules, notifications, etc, are not really its strong point.

Finally, looking at the 4 edition there seem to be a lot of improvements, some in the areas I've discussed, but I'd still appreciate your thoughts.
EF, where does it fit?
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I've done a few app's using the 3.5 version of Entity Framework, and have an up coming 4.0 project where EF may or may not fit. I've had a few issues with EF though, I think probably because I had the wrong expectations.

What I expected was a lot more clever than what I got. I think it fitted well where the context was relatively short lived. It didn't work (as) well when the context was expected to live as long as the application. 

I found there was a lot of boiler plate code, and a lot of care needed to be taken when doing things like roll backs.

Finally I didn't get the feeling that it was using the connection efficiently and I didn't feel I had much control over when it did.


So where do you find EF fits and where does it not? As mentioned, it seems to me that short lived contexts will rock, long lived contexts with interactions between modules, notifications, etc, are not really its strong point.

Finally, looking at the 4 edition there seem to be a lot of improvements, some in the areas I've discussed, but I'd still appreciate your thoughts.