Entity Framework Releases Demystified

Question

I am starting up working with the Entity Framework and I am seeing several versions.

In looking at blog posts I am finding reference to:

• Entity Framework Feature CTP 4
• Entity Framework Feature CTP 5 (few references to this, so it may not really exist)
• Entity Framework 4.0
• Entity Framework 4.1

Can someone tell me what order these go in and which ones are contained in others (for example are the features for Entity Framework Feature CTP 4 in Entity Framework 4.1?).

Answer 1

Entity Framework 4.0 was released with .NET 4.0

in late February, Entity Framework 4.1 went RTM. It isn't a new version of EF4 but just an add-on

CTP4 and CTP5 are just public betas of EF4.1 released before the RTM went live.

As far as I know, EF4.1 is CTP5.

Here you can read the changes from CTP4 to CTP5: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2010/12/10/code-first-mapping-changes-in-ctp5.aspx

Answer 2

http://thedatafarm.com/blog/data-access/ef4-books-and-ef-4-1/

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2011/04/11/ef-4-1-released.aspx