LINQ Interview with Anders Hejlsberg and Paul Vick

InfoWorld columnists Jon Udell and Tom Yeager interviewed Anders Hejlsberg and Paul Vick at PDC 2005. Here's a link to the 27:41 Podcast, "A conversation with with Anders Hejlsberg and Paul Vick about LINQ," which also includes transcripts of selected comments by Anders. Jon's item also includes a link to "The LINQ Project: .NET Language Integrated Query" MSDN white paper by Anders Hejlsberg and Don Box. The white paper emphasizes C# 3.0, but includes a few VB 9.0 examples. Paul Vick at 13:40 says, "One of the great advantages [of VB 9.0 is that] you learn one language. It can be C# or Visual Basic, but you learn one language; you don't have to go out and learn SQL. A lot of our developers do know SQL because they've been forced to, but now you don't actually have to do that." Microsoft initially hyped CLR integration with SQL Server 2005 as a means to eliminate Visual Studio developers' need to be proficient in [T-]SQL, as mentioned in my recent "When To Use SQLCLR, And When Not To" article. Substituting a knowledge of VB 9.0 query comprehensions for [T-]SQL proficiency is equally impractical in the real world. No matter what programming language or platform you choose, a working knowledge of SQL is essential for developers of data-intensive applications or components. --rj Technorati: LINQ