MySQL with Entity Framework - what am I doing wrong?

Question

I am completely new to Entity Framework and even ADO.NET in general (don\'t typically do much work with databases).

1. I downloaded and installed MySQL Connector/

Answer 1

Well, I don't know if this is the way it's supposed to be or not (if it is, I'm a little embarrassed -- though in my defense I fail to see anywhere this is clearly indicated); but it seems the problem was that I had my target framework set to .NET 3.5. After changing my project's target framework (honestly, on a whim) to .NET 4.0, the NullReferenceException went away.

So, as unsatisfying as it may be, that seems to have been the solution in my case.