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I recently purchased the O'Reilly book: Programming Entity Framework by Julia Lerman. Unfortunately it is the 1st edition. I didn't realize that there was a newer edition. Which in hind sight explains the lessor price for the book. So my question... Should I return it and get the 2nd edition or read the 1st edition?

The 1st edition spends a lot of time in the version 1 of the EF and the 2nd edition spends a lot of time in version 2 (which is where I want to be). I think I want to return it, but I thought I would ask the question first...

Thoughts?

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I think EF is up to version 4.0 now. – Gratzy Nov 10 '10 at 19:53
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I think you are right. However, I think that is considered version 2 (I might be wrong though) – webdad3 Nov 10 '10 at 20:18
@Jeff V, I think you are wrong. I've never heard version 4 of EF called version 2. And considering that I've seen a fair bit of info on version 3 I think v4 is referred to as v4. – Steve Evers Nov 10 '10 at 20:29
OK. Well I don't discount that. However, I thought version 1 of EF was for .Net 3.5 and version 2 of EF was for .Net 4.0. That is my understanding... In any case the book 1st edition is dealing with .Net 3.5 and the 2nd edition is .Net 4.0 – webdad3 Nov 10 '10 at 20:32
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@Jeff V is correct. EFv4 was named as such to align with .NET 4; however it is the second-release of EF (in other words, the only versions of EF are EFv1 and EFv4--making "version 2" a bit ambiguous as it does indeed refer to EFv4) – STW Nov 10 '10 at 20:50
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Both are good, but if possible then pay the extra for the second edition.

EFv1 was something of a rough-cut, EFv4 (the second version, they skipped v2 and v3) addressed many EFv1 issues and contains many new features. EFv4 is considered the first "production-ready" version by most developers.

Just noticed that you are considering different .NET version requirements. You're correct that EFv4 requires .NET 4; if you can't use .NET 4 then EFv1 is available--however many developers would steer you towards a more mature .NET 3.5 compatible ORM such as nHibernate due to the aforementioned half-baked nature of EFv1

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Is the information just "updated" for the EF4 version in the 2nd Edition? I mean will I have to re-read the newer book or use it more as a reference? – webdad3 Nov 10 '10 at 20:48
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Yes and no. EFv4 greatly expanded on EFv1, but didn't upset most of the basic principles--however EFv1 required knowledge of many sharp-edges, which have been remedied by EFv4. So, technically you could learn EFv1 then expand into v4, but my advice is to go straight to learning v4-specific knowledge--v1 is essentially beta. – STW Nov 10 '10 at 20:53
Thanks, I think you are right about the sharp edges... – webdad3 Nov 10 '10 at 21:01
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If you are working in VS2010 and .NET 4, you definitely want the new edition. Many things are very different and I spent a year rewriting the book.

The 2nd edition essentially starts from scratch with VS2010/.NET 4.

Are you able to exchange??

Julie Lerman

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@Julie - Yes I can but I was so looking forward to having the book right away. Now that I have it, the return process (used from Amazon) is longer than I would like. Next payday I'll just buy the kindle version :) – webdad3 Nov 12 '10 at 17:25
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It can certainly be a Pain, trying to keep up to date with the latest releases of books. To that end i would suggest you try something like Sarari online or books24x7.

They are subscription based services so they do cost $$$, however, if you look at how many books you buy in the course of a year it might prove beneficial. Even better if you can get your company to purchase it on your behalf.

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