Data Driver

Blog archive

Entity Framework Peeves? Code it Yourself!

A lot of data developers were frustrated with missing features of the Entity Framework as it continued to evolve in the past few years, such as the oft-requested enum support, for example.

Well, that support is included in the upcoming EF 5 release, of course. But beyond that, Microsoft -- in yet another implementation of its turnabout embrace of the open source movement -- has put its flagship object-relational mapping source code up for grabs on CodePlex, the company announced recently.

On the open source software hosting site are the EF runtime and Power Tools, with more to come. And developers have been busy, with changes being made right up until Monday, with a code contribution "Making IQueryable implementation on ObjectQuery explicit again," and 26 forks.

CodePlex reported almost 106,000 page views and 2,475 software downloads, with 560 people following the project.

So if there's something you don't like about EF, you can now do more than submit a bug report a request a feature -- you can code that feature yourself!

As Scott Guthrie noted in his announcement of the open source move: "Community contributions will also be welcomed, so you can help shape and build Entity Framework into an even better product."

I'd be interested to see how much non-Microsoft code makes it into release software, though. This obviously isn't a weekend project for a hobbyist hacker. I can't imagine many people passing muster and meeting Microsoft's strict coding requirements. As the company states on its "Ways to Contribute" CodePlex page:

Note that all code submissions will be rigorously reviewed and tested by the Entity Framework Team, and only those that meet an extremely high bar for both quality and design/roadmap appropriateness will be merged into the source.

Anyone up to the challenge? I'd love to hear from contributors to the project and share the nuts and bolts of the process with readers (Microsoft lists 13 fairly involved steps to follow in order to contribute code). If you've contributed or tried to, or know someone else who has, please comment here or drop me a line.

Posted by David Ramel on 08/16/2012


comments powered by Disqus

Featured

  • Mastering Blazor Authentication and Authorization

    At the Visual Studio Live! @ Microsoft HQ developer conference set for August, Rockford Lhotka will explain the ins and outs of authentication across Blazor Server, WebAssembly, and .NET MAUI Hybrid apps, and show how to use identity and claims to customize application behavior through fine-grained authorization.

  • Linear Support Vector Regression from Scratch Using C# with Evolutionary Training

    Dr. James McCaffrey from Microsoft Research presents a complete end-to-end demonstration of the linear support vector regression (linear SVR) technique, where the goal is to predict a single numeric value. A linear SVR model uses an unusual error/loss function and cannot be trained using standard simple techniques, and so evolutionary optimization training is used.

  • Low-Code Report Says AI Will Enhance, Not Replace DIY Dev Tools

    Along with replacing software developers and possibly killing humanity, advanced AI is seen by many as a death knell for the do-it-yourself, low-code/no-code tooling industry, but a new report belies that notion.

  • Vibe Coding with Latest Visual Studio Preview

    Microsoft's latest Visual Studio preview facilitates "vibe coding," where developers mainly use GitHub Copilot AI to do all the programming in accordance with spoken or typed instructions.

  • Steve Sanderson Previews AI App Dev: Small Models, Agents and a Blazor Voice Assistant

    Blazor creator Steve Sanderson presented a keynote at the recent NDC London 2025 conference where he previewed the future of .NET application development with smaller AI models and autonomous agents, along with showcasing a new Blazor voice assistant project demonstrating cutting-edge functionality.

Subscribe on YouTube