Microsoft finally adding support for spatial types to the Entity Framework

Microsoft introduced the spatial data types to SQL Server in 2008. Since then, they've released multiple versions of the entity framework and Visual Studio, but support in Microsoft's developer frameworks and toolkits for the spatial data types has always been virtually non-existent. This has required developers to implement "creative" workarounds when integrating SQL Server spatial into their applications. It seems that this is all (finally!) about to change. Microsoft just announced this past week that they are going to be adding full support for the geometry and geography spatial data types to the entity framework in an upcoming release. "Full support" includes: providing "first class support for spatial in EDM", "rich programming experience in LINQ and Entity SQL against spatial types", "code-first, model-first, and database-first support", and "tooling." Saying I'm excited to get my hands on this new release is an understatement. I am really hoping this will solve a lot of the problems we've run into in the past.