Hi guys,

I currently use the llblgen pro framework with prefetch paths to load data but in my new job, I'll be using entity framework v 4.5 with include().

What features will I be losing? Or to put it another way, what are the advantages of llblgen prefetch paths over entity frameworks include()?

Cheers

Peter

• Include works with strings, not typed objects. There are some extension methods available which allow you to perform Include with lambda's but it's not ideal.

• Include produces horrific SQL. EF uses joins to create 1 big query to fetch the entire graph. This quickly ends up in a big mess and you'll learn soon enough when you inspect the queries being generated. Our prefetch paths produce 1 query per node and are self-tuning (so produce IN queries if parent node has less than X elements)

• Include has no way to filter, sort, limit the elements being fetched and doesn't offer any exclude/include fields feature.

Recently some guy, Richard Hopton, created an even easier prefetch path api for us, for Linq to LLBLGen Pro: https://github.com/richardhopton/LLBLGen.Linq.Prefetch/

So in short: EF with Include... you're not gonna like it

gulp ... somehow I just knew it wasn't going to be good news.

Yeah, sorry I had to bring you this news... perhaps your team leader will get fed up with it as well and you can make the switch to a better framework

lol ... lets hope so - I'll certainly carry on using LLBLGEN for my own stuff. I'll finally have a chance to learn queryspec. Unless of course you recommend using LINQ.

Pete

Queryspec is more flexible, but in some cases linq might be easier. You can use both in your code, at the same time, so just pick whatever rocks your boat