Earlier this month Microsoft released Entity Framework Core 3.0 Preview 8 and Entity Framework 6.3 Preview 8.
Entity Framework 6 (EF6) was first released in 2008 and runs on the .NET Framework 4.x (available only on Windows). Entity Framework Core (EF Core) is a complete cross-platform rewrite of EF6 that can run on .NET Core or .NET Framework. A detailed feature comparison between EF Core and EF6 can be found here.
Following the synchronized release calendar, the new previews were available on the same day as .NET Core 3.0 Preview 8 and ASP.NET Core 3.0 Preview 8.
One of the major features for the Entity Framework 6.3 release is supporting Entity Framework 6 (EF6) on .NET Core. The release of Preview 8 marks the end of the efforts towards this goal, with the addition of the ability to execute migration commands against .NET Core projects in Visual Studio. The development efforts on EF6.3 will be focused on fixing bugs until the official release of EF6.3. Among the mapped issues, a particularly interesting one is the creation of a cross-platform command-line tool for migrations commands. This issue is currently under public discussion here.
The new preview for EF Core 3.0 includes fixes for a total of 68 issues - all resolved since Preview 7. These issues include restoring functionalities previously disabled due to the work related to the new LINQ implementation, such as explicitly compiling queries and fixing the Lambda translation in SqlTranslator. Other relevant updates include multiple fixes related to the Cosmos DB and the upgrade of both the SQL Server and the Cosmos DB providers. A full list of the issues fixed in this release can be found here.
With this release, most of the functionalities related to the new EF Core LINQ implementation are completed. A few bugs and limitations still exist - Microsoft specifically highlights that the in-memory provider is still very limited, and global query filters are still not correctly applied to navigation properties (a fix for this bug is already available in daily builds).
Consistently with the last preview, Microsoft recommends switching to a daily build of EF Core 3.0 given the rapid pace of development. The list of breaking changes in EF Core 3.0 is also being constantly updated.
