Entity Framework Code First Pre-Compiled Views Not Speeding Up First Call

Question

I used EF PowerTools (EF5) in VS2012 to generate pre-compiled views for my large code-first DataContext. Unfortunately, this didn't help speed up the first call to the data context. It still takes about 13 seconds. Are there some considerations for using pre-compiled views that I'm not taking into account? I am not using migrations and I'm disabling database initialization.

<connectionStrings>
    <add name="MyDataContext" connectionString="..." providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

<entityFramework>
    <defaultConnectionFactory type="System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.SqlConnectionFactory, EntityFramework" />
    <contexts>
        <context type="MyNameSpace.MyDataContext, MyNameSpaceAssembly" disableDatabaseInitialization="true" />
    </contexts>
</entityFramework>

Answer 1

After digging through the Internet with various search terms, I was able to figure this out. There is a problem using precompiled views if your entities are not in the same assembly as the data context. The issue is described here:

Which assembly should I place the compiled views for entity framework code first when context is in a separate project from the domain classes

There is a workaround, however, I find it to be quite a hack. The first DbSet entity defined in the context must reside in the same assembly as the DataContext. I created this arbitrary entity class in my context's assembly:

public class PreCompiledView
{
    public int PreCompiledViewId { get; set; }
}

and added the DbSet to my context:

public class MyDataContext : DbContext
{
    #region DBSets

    // HACK: Enable pre-compiled views
    internal DbSet<PreCompiledView> PreCompiledViews { get; set; }

    // My entity sets
    public DbSet<MyOtherAssemblyEntity> MyOtherAssemblyEntities { get; set; }
    ...

    #endregion
}

My pre-compiled views are now reflected and used by the datacontext. In my custom database initializer Seed() override, I execute a SQL DROP statement to drop the dbo.PrecompiledViews table in order to keep it hidden from developers.

context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand("DROP TABLE [dbo].[PreCompiledViews]");

Answer 2

They are two separate issues. Precompiling the views doesn't create the execution plan. The execution plan is what is taking up most of the time on the first request. Precompiling the views helps but it is not what takes up the majority of the time.