Data Transfer Objects and Entity Framework

Answer 1

The code you posted does more than translate between the EF type and the DTO type - you're also fetching the data from the database. Try to separate the two for measurement purposes. Chances are that it's the data retrieval that takes 10 seconds, not the time spent moving data around in memory.

Answer 2

I load it by saying:

        public List<CarDefinitionDTO> LoadAll()
    {
        List<DataLayer.CarModelDefinition> carList = (from cd in mee.CarModelDefinition select cd).ToList();
        CarDefinitionDTO cdDTO = new CarDefinitionDTO();
        List<CarDefinitionDTO> carDefList = cdDTO.Transform(carList);
        return carDefList;
    }

Answer 3

I found the error. In the constructor I create the instance of the Entity manager, and when I created a new object it would create a new instance all the time, which was quite time consuming.