As we learn new technologies, we discover new mistakes. The Entity Framework makes data access very quick to develop, but also introduces a new set of mistakes that can be made. On my last project I used the Entity Framework Profiler and found my code blighted with a scourge of N+1 problems. I discussed this in my blog post Reviewing my data access layer using the Entity Framework Profiler.

I was also worried that my code wasn’t testable. From what I’d read, the repository pattern seemed to be the agreed best practice for making your data access testable.

However my N+1 problems led me to …