>So from what Mike posted I infer that you are not "condemning" EF altogether, but just it's code-first flavour?

not condemming at all, if they pay me enough I can get anything to work. But I have not seen the light of code first, even if it comes from many code angles. I suspect at least some ORM coders have less SQL expirience.

But ORM is often overengineered for simple tasks and was sometimes to slow when facing large datasets. Have not checked heavy usage in the last 4 years - might be coming from stale samples. But KISS has its benefits - I try for "rectangular" DB setup - yes NoSQL/document data may save some time and money, but should live in a tiny part of otherwise rectangular data. Forcing that rectangular directly into ORM memory IMO is missing out on possible HW caching benefits.