A common SQL habit is to use SELECT * on a query, because it’s tedious to list all the columns you need. Plus, sometimes those columns may change over time, so why not just do things the easy way? But ...

Part of the problem is that there is no magic bullet, and for almost every best practice, I can show you at least one exception. Typically, a developer finds his or her own favorite methods — though ...

You don't have to give up on creating dynamic queries just because you're using Entity Framework. Entity SQL and ObjectQuery will let you generate queries at runtime and still let you update your data ...