Now that .NET v3.5 SP1 has been released (along with VS2008 SP1), we now have access to the .NET entity framework.
My question is this. When trying to decide betwee
I found a very good answer here which explains when to use what in simple words:
The basic rule of thumb for which framework to use is how to plan on editing your data in your presentation layer.
Linq-To-Sql - use this framework if you plan on editing a one-to-one relationship of your data in your presentation layer. Meaning you don't plan on combining data from more than one table in any one view or page.
Entity Framework - use this framework if you plan on combining data from more than one table in your view or page. To make this clearer, the above terms are specific to data that will be manipulated in your view or page, not just displayed. This is important to understand.
With the Entity Framework you are able to "merge" tabled data together to present to the presentation layer in an editable form, and then when that form is submitted, EF will know how to update ALL the data from the various tables.
There are probably more accurate reasons to choose EF over L2S, but this would probably be the easiest one to understand. L2S does not have the capability to merge data for view presentation.