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mysqlentity-frameworkef-power-tools

Entity Framework Power Tools Beta 4 vs Not - Using MySql

I am using VS2013, Entity Framework 5 and MySql Server 5.5 (Workbench 6.0)

I have been programming in .NET for some time now but never used EF. I wanna give it a try as I hear it's a very flexible and useful tool.

I read that there might be some issues using the MySql database with EF5 and read on the web that using the "Entity Framework Power Tools Beta 4" will solve them.

Now, I tried both, and still haven't resolved everything there but I can see that they are different in the references and way of building the Models.

Should I use just one of them or are they working together? Can anyone give me Pros and Cons?

Thanks

Solution

  • Power Tools are kind of complementary to the EF Designer. EF Designer allows for Model First and Database First approaches while one of the bigger things Power Tools enable is to create Code First model from the database. However this functionality is being rolled in to the EF Designer as described here. In fact you can already get a preview for VS2013 from here.