The Drupal 7 Entity API: What's it good for and how do I use it?

Drupal 7 introduced a new API to abstract away the process of loading objects from tables, optionally with fields attached to them.

In D6, you have no choice about where your content ends up, unless you want to write mountains of custom code. If you want something to be flexible and have fields, then you better be prepared to have tons of content types.

The Entity API allows you to not use Nodes every single thing on your site! With D7, you can define your own data tables, with related fields and everything. Not only does this provide much greater architectural flexibility, but it can reduce the weight of your code by not having to shoehorn everything into a node.

I will be talking about some of the basic benefits of the Core Entity API, and providing some quick examples of uses for Entities. I will also talk about why you should also probably try to use the Contrib Entity module to extend Core's functionality.