Off to the DotNet user group to see
Ian Griffiths talk about LINQ and C# 3.0
Interesting stuff and well put together. Overall though I'm just not sure the whole LINQ (in it's present state) story is a good solution to the database / OO mismatch.
I can see where MS are going with this and Ians presentation was pretty good, it just feels like we're going to end up with SQL embedded in the wrong place. I can see a whole new load of SQL code embedded in folks UI layers rather than down at the business object layer (or better yet on the server). It also leaves me wondering what the VB.NET story will be with LINQ?
On the other hand I can see a lot of uses for bits of the technology and it does feel like a step forward. I think depends on when MS ship Orcas, if they're aiming for Vista then I suspect we'll get a half arsed implementation in C# 3.0.
Personally I'd rather MS did a VS2006 with XAML bits and pieces plus some bug fixes (aka .NET 2.1) they could also use to fix some of my Team System moans (MS Project integration and lack of offline source control) perhaps with a bolt-on preview of LINQ / C#3.0 then gave us a better long term story for C#3.0. The only problem with this as a suggestion is that then pushes C# 3.0 proper out towards a 2007/8 time frame at which point it may end up getting entangled again with an SQL version and we're back at shipping two products in sync, MS struggled with Yukon and Whidbey to make these two match up, my "gut" feeling is that SQL2005 was ready first and VS2005 suffers a bit from "we have to ship it" development, in particular the delays over team system make me feel that way.
