Can I abstract Entity Framework away from my Entities?

Question

I have a Foo entity in Entity Framework. But I\'m making it inherit from IFoo so that my business logic only knows IFoo - thus abstracting

Answer 1

I'm a Java developer, so I can't comment with any authority on Entity Framework. I can tell you that ORM solutions like Hibernate make it possible to have POJO persistence without having to resort to common abstract classes, interfaces, or modifying byte code. It handles relationships like the 1:m you cite for your Foo and Bar without having to use special collection classes.

The special sauce is externalized into mapping configuration and Hibernate itself.

The little bit that I read about Entity Framework suggests that it's an ORM solution with the same aim: POCO persistence. I didn't see any mention of interfaces. I can't see the need for them from your example, because it's too abstract.

I'm inferring that it's possible to get that independence between business objects and persistence tier without having to resort to those interfaces, because I know Hibernate does it. I'd say that Spring's JDBC solution accomplishes it as well, because there's no need for common interfaces. They use a RowMapper construct to ferry data out of a query and into an object.

I wish I could advise you precisely how to do it with Entity Framework, but maybe you'll take heart knowing that it can be done.