The former co-workers (the Microsoft XML team) have been hard at work
with the C# language team to bring the XML query integration into the
core languages for the .NET Framework. From Dave Remy's post
Anders unveils LINQ! (and XLinq) we learn
In Jim Allchin's keynote At PDC2005 today Anders Hejlsberg showed the LINQ
project for the first time. LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query. The big
idea behind LINQ is to provide a consistent query experience across different
"LINQ enabled" data access technologies AND to allow querying these different
data access technologies in a single query. Out of the box there are three LINQ
enabled data access technologies that are being shown at PDC. The first is any
in-memory .NET collection that you foreach over (any .NET collection that
implements IEnumerable<T>). The second is DLinq which provides LINQ over
a strongly typed relational database layer. The third, which I have been
working on for the last 6 months or so (along with Anders and others on the
WebData XML team), is XLinq, a new in-memory XML programming API that is
Language Integerated Query enabled. It is great to get the chance to get this
technology to the next stage of development and get all of you involved. The
LINQ Preview bits (incuding XLinq and DLinq) are being made available to PDC
attendees. More information on the LINQ project (including the preview bits)
are also available online at http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/linq
This is pretty innovative stuff and I definitely can't wait to
download the bits when I get some free time. Perhaps I need to write an
article exploring LINQ for XML.com the way I did with my Introducing
C-Omega article? Then again, I still haven't updated my C# vs. Java comparison to account for C# 2.0 and Java 1.5. It looks like I'll be writing a bunch of programming language articles this fall.
Which article would you rather see?