Charlie Calvert's Community Blog : Chats

Upcoming C# Chats

Charlie Calvert — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 08:03:49 GMT

In April and May the C# Team will have three public chats.

April 23, 2007, 11 AM Pacific Time C# Visual Studio IDE Chat: Talk about C# IntelliSense for LINQ. Discuss what else is planned for Visual Studio Orcas. Plus: Code snippets, enhanced IntelliSense, type colorization, refactoring, improved code navigation, metadata as source, Edit and Continue and all the other great new C# IDE features in Visual Studio 2005. There's a lot to talk about! It's your choice! Join the C# IDE team for a chat completely directed by your questions.

May 7, 2007, 11 AM Pacific Time Compiler and Language Chat: C# Language Chat. Want to know more about anonymous delegates in C# 2.0, or our design rationale for them? Have some questions about our current thinking on C# 3.0 and LINQ? Perhaps you'd like to share your ideas with other C# users or the C# language team. Join the C# team chat for an opportunity to do all that and more!

May 21 2007, 11 AM Pacific Time LINQ to SQL Chat: The LINQ Project is a part of the next version of Visual Studio, code named Orcas. LINQ will provide a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that encompass language-integrated query, set, and transform operations. LINQ to SQL is a component of LINQ which allows access to data stored in relational databases. We’re actively designing and developing this technology - show up and join the LINQ to SQL team to participate in that process or just get a better understanding!

I will post more details as the time of the chat draws near.

C# LINQ to SQL Chat Dec 12, 2006

Charlie Calvert — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 04:20:00 GMT

Chat Topic: C# LINQ to SQL
Date: Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Unique Users: 106
Questions: 104
Forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=123&SiteID=1
Additional Information:

Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
A: We'll be starting in just a couple minutes.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
I am the program manager for LINQ to SQL. My blog (lately dormant) is at http://blogs.msdn.com/dinesh.kulkarni/ My rap sheet at MS includes DataSet and ObjectSpaces (sigh!)
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Hi, I'm Terry Adams and I'm the Dev Lead for LINQ to SQL. I've been on the team for about 1 year.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
A: My name is Charlie Calvert and I'm Community PM for C# (http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie)
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
I'm a developer on the LINQ to SQL team
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
I'm Keith Farmer, dev on LINQ to SQL.
Cyrus - MS (Expert):
I'm Cyrus, I put the dot in VS.Net
Jay Hickerson MS (Expert):
Hi, I'm Jay Hickerson, a tester on the O/R Designer.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
So let's go ahead and get started. We have lots of experts here, send us your questions and we will begin answering them.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi, I'm the architect of the LINQ to SQL product and co-designer of LINQ. I also have background in ADO, ADO.Net, XML.Net, ObjectSpaces, and C-Omega

Mike Pizzo[MS]: Hi, My name is Mike Pizzo and I’m an architect in the Data Programmability team. I’ve worked on Data Access APIs at Microsoft for over 15 years, starting with ODBC and including OLE DB, ADO, ADO.NET, and now the ADO.NET Entity Framework in Orcas.

Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
We are here to talk about LINQ, and related technologies, so go ahead and fire away with your LINQ questions.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
The focus in this chat is LINQ to SQL, but we can probably handle most LINQ related questions.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Can you go ahead and explain, then, specifically what LINQ to SQL is, functionally, and how it relates in with the larger LINQ specification?
A: LINQ to SQL is both an implementation of LINQ over relational databases and entry level ORM. The primary focus of LINQ to SQL is to enable query and object life-time management over objects that are tied to database persistence. LINQ to SQL tackles this problem from the low-end up, ensuring first that most database schemas can be mapped to objects, as opposed to attempting to map all objects to database schemas.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Do you plan to extend the DLINQ designer with the ability to add attributes to fields? For example: attributes of Validation Block, etc?
A: Are you looking for custom attributes that you want to put in, or something else? The designer currently only generates mapping attributes.

Currently we do not plan to add custom attrib for classes/members. I had posted to the LINQ forum (and other places) asking for scenarios where custom attributes (not global ones like those that are debugger-related) are used but did not get much response. We have not prioritized the feature since then. Please let us know what attributes/uses you have in mind. Thanks.
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: If you specify your own Update, Insert and Delete methods for an instance type, can you call the LINQ to SQL's native SQL generated implementation from those methods? (ie. like call SubmitChanges() again but bypass your implementation)
A: No - When you call SubmitChanges, we will call your CUD method, so that would result in an infinite loop.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: For most user interface / database applications, will the LINQ to SQL syntax be used for production applications instead of writing insert/update/select/delete commands?
A: That is what we are working on enabling and that is a productivity booster that we want to make available. Its use is up to you :-)

Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: For the Query Expression syntax, why was the Distinct keyword left out? IMHO it’s a more popular keyword and I'm finding having to append it as an extension to the end of each query a little untidy. e.g. var [p] = from [q] in [w] where [x] select distinct [y];
A: Honestly, we had to cut it off at some point.
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will SQLMetal ship in Orcas in addition to the Visual Designer (currently DLINQ Object)? We need SQLMetal for automated builds. (no offence Jay the O/R mapper is great, just difficult to automate)
A: Yes, we will be releasing SqlMetal as part of the Windows SDK
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: What is the status of the December Orcas beta?
A: LINQ to SQL features are limited to basic query support. So we suggest you stick to May LINQ CTP until Feb 07 Orcas CTP for LINQ to SQL.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Working with DLINQ Designer I think that it should have the ability to get new versions of a table from a connected database.
A: This is a good suggestion. Would you expect the class definition to change for your entity class anytime you open up the designer?
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Hello all... Sorry I'm a little late. My name is Amanda Silver and I'm the lead program manager for Visual Basic.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will the next CTP provide better support for object inheritance on mapped classes? I want a base class that all my entities extend from, that need to be persisted -- it's just for plumbing code.
A: You can derive your entities from any base class you want. However, that common across-entity base class cannot be part of the persisted/mapped hierarchy.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Will the Orcas release have any LINQ to SQL support for Validation in addition to what is or is not there now? (Like an Errors collection and binding to the ErrorProvider.)
A: Yes. We are planning to let you write your validation logic for property setters and entire entities using private optimized events in VB and there is a partial methods feature planned in C#.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Is there a target date for when a production version of LINQ for SQL will be released?
A: LINQ for SQL will ship with the Visual Studio Orcas release.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: The LINQ to SQL C# documentation that shipped with the May beta was fantastic (kudos to the author(s)). At the back was a list of what types and methods were translatable to SQL and subtle behavior differences. Just want you to know this was very helpful.
A: Thanks. There were a few of us that contributed to that document. :-)
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: What is the relationship between LINQ and .Net Framework 3.0?
A: LINQ is not a part of .NET Fx 3.0. Various LINQ components including LINQ to SQL are a part of the .NET Fx 3.5 codenamed "Orcas"
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Any estimated release date? Java 6.0 is out, I am waiting for any official date...
A: We're aiming to ship in the second half of next year. We've already started having fully integrated CTPs (with features in all areas of the product.)
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
Q: What do you see as the biggest hurdle for developers currently supporting soon-to-be-old technologies (like ADO[.*]) in migrating to LINQ?
A: The biggest jump when getting used to the LINQ programming paradigm is getting used to functional programming. We are used to using an imperative syntax where we give explicit instructions. The query expression syntax is quite simple and intuitive, but it takes a little leap conceptually to get used to. Once you understand it, then people can get up to speed quickly.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q:What is the key difference between ADO.NET Entities and LINQ 2 SQL?
A: LINQ to SQL is an ORM over your relational database schema plus some mappings. LINQ to Entities is an ORM over a conceptual object-less model (ERM) that is a mapping over your relational database schema.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: (Feature Request) I would like to be able to specify an include or exclude list for SQLMetal. At the moment, many StoredProcedures which I don't want (reporting services, etc) are failing when SQLMetal tries to generate their stored procedure wrapper.
A: Good suggestion. We are working on providing mechanisms for doing that in SqlMetal through a DBML file that you can edit to exclude. Designer of course takes the "include" approach where you get to specify what to include through drag & drop (including multiple objects at once).
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Should we use Stored Procs or should we use LINQ with new development ?
A: I think the methods for deciding whether to use stored procedures or dynamic SQL for a particular application remain unchanged even after the release of LINQ to SQL. We just make both options easier.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Will you provide custom "hooks" for mapping in the future? It would be nice if we could decorate entity classes with attributes and/or some XML config so that we could autogenerate constraints/indices when we call CreateDatabase().
A: I'm not sure what you question is. Anyone can decorate classes/columns with attributes they choose and then use those attributes to generate the database. However, it wouldn't automatically be used by CreateDatabase. CreateDatabase is intended to be a simple database creation feature for those developers that would like to map a set of existing objects into a database which hasn't been defined yet.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are you saying that in that Feb 2007 Orcas CTP that all of the LINQ functionality existing in the May 2006 LINQ CTP plus any new features/fixes will be included? Right now, there is no one release to see the latest greatest LINQ.
A: We're still trying to figure out exactly which CTP will exhibit near parity with the May CTP. It will be coming shortly - in the first few months of the next year.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Will the December CTP come with a good sample implementing IQueryable<T>, I've had a go at implementing it myself but there are some key things like separating expressions etc...

A: The December CTP does not have that sample. We are working on improving our sample story for the following CTP.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What is the performance hit of LINQ to SQL compared to writing data methods with commands and parameters?
A: There is of course a performance cost of both translating queries into SQL and materializing results as objects. The relative cost of this depends on how complicated the query is and how much data is being retrieved. Yet much of this can be mitigated for server apps by using compiled queries (available soon).
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Are there any specific applications where LINQ or any of its "sub-technologies" can be used with Windows Communication Foundation or Windows Workflow Foundation?
A: You can use LINQ to SQL or other LINQ technologies with WCF. One application is to build web-services with database back-ends where you need to "shape" your data. LINQ projections provide a powerful mechanism.

Another area is where you are going across relational-object-XML domains. You can do so easily with LINQ and consume XML obtained from a web-service.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: I heard that you’ll not be supporting a lazy loading in the ORM, any alternatives?
A: We do support lazy loading in LINQ to SQL.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: I heard that you’ll not be supporting a lazy loading in the ORM, any alternatives ?
A: We have supported and continue to support lazy loading. We are simply adding an alternative to use LINQ to SQL without requiring lazy loading.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I heard that there are new features of C# 3.0 and LINQ coming with the December CTP, is that true, and if so what are they?
A: There are mostly just refinements of features that were available in prior LINQ CTP's. New stuff in December relative to earlier Visual Studio CTP's is lambda to expression tree translation.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will the Orcas version of VB have lambda expressions?
A: Yes! However, they are still in development and haven't made it into a CTP as of yet.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will extension methods have more access than to public members of the class, and is there any plans to support the asynchronous methods of c omega in c# 3.0?
A: Extensions methods are just syntactic sugar over using normal static methods. So, no, they cannot access anything you would not normally be able to access in a static method defined outside the class.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Can we use May CTP LINQ with .NET 3.0 RTM without any problems?
A: I have personally used LINQ with .NET 3.0 beta before without problems and know of people who have used RTM as well. I am not aware of problems (beyond what you would expect from a tech preview ;-) )
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
Keep those questions coming. We have lots of experts here ready to answer your questions. We are ready for questions on anything on LINQ to SQL, or on related technologies such as extension methods, lambdas, etc.
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I tried to use the method CreateDatabase() of my DataContext but it does not seem to be working. How should I properly initialize the connection and use this method?
A: Can you provide the code that is not working for you? The general pattern is:

Q [39] - Northwind nw = new Northwind("your connection string"); nw.CreateDatabase()
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Re: [22] Terry -- Yeah, but I have to write that code myself =). If you provided a "CustomSQL" attribute or something like that I could define abitrary T-SQL to run when CreateDatabase was called to automatically create indices, constraints, whatever else!
A: OK. I see what you are getting at. We would have to define specific semantics for when this SQL is called. Would you want this functionality for both classes and properties?
Jay Hickerson MS (Expert):
Q: Re [Q2] I am think about using the Validation Application Block to add some constraints to the fields of my tables
A: I'm not super familiar with the Validation Application Block but if I'm not mistaken it is implemented as a set of CLR attributes. The O/R designer (formerly called the DLinq Designer) does allow you to put custom CLR attributes on properties of classes, and the classes themselves.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Dinesh: What if all of my entities have common columns (i.e. a primary key ID and a rowversion) – Can I put those in the base class my entities all extend from? =\
A: Even if you do, they will likely have different mappings - each entity will go to a different table (in the LINQ to SQL model). So having a base class is fine but the mapping needs to be in the entity class (unless the whole hierarchy maps to a single table).
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: "We are simply adding an alternative to use LINQ to SQL without requiring lazy loading" what is that alternative??
A: You can disable deferred loading by setting a property on the DataContext, and then you can describe pre-fetch behavior using the new DataShape class.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: [12] Dinesh: Re the validation features: Any idea in which CTP we'll first see them?
A: Not until later in the year. It won't be in the Feb CTP and it won’t be in Beta1. We just finished all that work and partial methods/optimized events are not in it.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Q6: Maybe some variants: Refresh table - get table but keep relations. Only new fields, Refresh All - get table and relations - and maybe some option to show differences between the LINQ schema and database schema (of table)
A: Thanks for the input. I will pass this suggestion on to the designer team. I especially like the idea of showing the differences between the items that have been mapped and what is left to be mapped in the database.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I know you can query XML elements, but can you generate XML elements with LINQ?
A: Yes! The XLINQ API is a full XML DOM including element-centric XML construction.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Is there any documentation on (or plans for) migrating the use of existing supported technologies to LINQ to SQL?
A: I would love to hear specific requests and details in this area. This is the kind of stuff that we want to address through various channels. It will likely not be a part of the "product doc" but I can totally see the value of putting it on MSDN/blogs etc.

Please post your wish list here or send it to me at <myfirstname>.<mylastname>@microsoft.com

Thanks.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Re: Terry[36]: Both classes and properties would be great -- perhaps you could provide an enum (BeforeCreateTable, AfterCreateTable, etc) to determine when to run it, or provide a Type on the attribute that indicates a dependency on another mapped class.
A: OK.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is the only new LINQ stuff in the December Orcas beta going to be lambda to expression tree translation?
A: There will also be new variants on list initializers, so you can initialize a class like Dictionary, and new type inference rules for generic method type arguments. Though, mostly the next CTP will generally have feature parity with prior LINQ CTPs (that were based on prototypes).
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Last time I checked, LINQ to SQL required a table to have primary keys? Is that still true?
A: We've relaxed that recently and now allow you to have read-only tables that do not specify primary keys, so you can use these for views, etc. However, note that the PK you specify does not have to a true database PK, only a unique key.
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is the new DataShape class documented anywhere at the moment?
A: Not publicly - however we plan to get some documentation plus samples together before the beta release for all the new features.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Matt...that CTP being Feb 2007?
A: I believe so.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: "Compiled Queries?"... Might sound silly, but what are they and how do they work?
A: LINQ to SQL does work to translate an expression tree to SQL. Compiled queries let you amortize the cost of this translation over multiple executions of the same query - possibly with different parameter values. So it is an optimization.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What about the DB Null dilemma ?
A: It's a hard problem... The problem is that the CLR already has a concept of null -- the null reference. The Nullable type, introduced in 2005, is an attempt to denote Nullable value types and allow you to write null propagating expressions. When LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities creates an ORM over your relational data, they will map Nullable columns to Nullable(Of T). [That's Nullable<T> to those of you who code in C#.]
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @Matt, can you expand on this list initializers idea? How would I initialize a Dictionary?
A: new Dictionary<int, string> { {1, "one"}, {2, "two"}, {3, "three"} }
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: My understanding is that var(s) are not serializable... can you recommend an approach for making projections serializable i.e. select {p.Firstname, p.Surname} ?
A: The only suggestion I have is to project these into a class which you have defined as Serializable. This requires you to define another class for the projection.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @Matt, can you expand on this list Initializer idea? How would I initialize a Dictionary?
A: You can also initialize Collections that do not implement ICollection, and a class that is enumerable and implements an Add() method. You can use tuples: {x, y, z} to describe arguments that match the Add() method signature if there is more than one argument. This enables initialization of many pre-exisitng collection classes in the frameworks and 3rd party products. The dictionary initialization is merely a case of this generalization.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When will we see a first working CTP/Beta including LINQ to Entities?
A: LINQ to Entities is supposed to be available in the next CTP. February, I believe.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is there still an effort to integrate LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities?
A: There is an effort on going to align these products, but not to integrate them together.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: But about null behavior, as it has been said before, database null is not the c# null, still no solution of that? Maybe an extension property that is called DBNull that will do the database behavior of null for example...
A: There's no obvious solution for how to rectify the two. What's the scenario that you're thinking about where this becomes a problem?
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: (Feature request) Scenario: Smart Client application - to save bandwidth, I only want to send the changed, new and deleted objects back to the server for processing. Can we get a list of just the objects added/changed/deleted records (or RowState style prop)?
A: Thanks for the suggestion. I'll put this on our list of feature suggestions.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: In C# 2.0, I needed to do a recursive anonymous method, but that fails because the method doesn’t see its reference, or am I mistaken?
A: To do a recursive anonymous method you need to create a local variable for the anonymous method initialized to null, and then referencing that variable in your anonymous method.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Re: Dinesh [26]: That requires me to override all of the properties in the base class JUST so I can put a mapping attribute on the concrete class -- better support for XML mapping would help here (allowing me to map a property that’s actually on the base)
A: Is this a case where the column names are identical but the tables are different? E.g. all have ID but it goes to CustomerTable.ID versus EmployeeTable.ID for separate classes? That's a fair request. We will look into it though our schedule is quite tight.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What about my question of asynchronous C# methods feature of C Omega research?
A: There is no asynchronous method planned for C# in the Orcas timeframe.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Re: Dinesh[10]: Are you saying that the December CTP will NOT have all of the functionality of the May CTP (in terms of LINQ to SQL support)? =(
A: Yes. That is what I am saying. Feb CTP should have better feature coverage for LINQ to SQL.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
We are a little over half way through the chat. Keep those good questions coming. Anything related to LINQ to SQL and most questions about LINQ in general are fair game.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: The famous scenario is when I search where s.name==d.name and both are null in the database :)
A: Sure... But if both of them refer to objects in your DLINQ ORM the result would be the null value due to support for null propagation with Nullable(Of T)
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Actually I saw a lot of feature of the f# project, and I see that C# is implementing some of its functional programming features. How far would that go?
A: The C# features that were introduced that are similar to 'functional programming' were added to address specific customer programming scenarios. As long as the scenarios continue requiring functional programming like solutions we'll keep adding them. However, we’re not specifically setting out to turn C# into a functional programming language.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: When I use: I have error "An object or column name is missing or empty. For SELECT INTO statements, verify each column has a name. For other statements, look for empty alias names. Aliases defined as "" or [] are not allowed. Add a name or single space
MyDataContext dc = new MyDataContext();

dc.Connection.ConnectionString = "Data Source=localhost;Integrated Security=True";

dc.CreateDatabase();

dc.Connection.Close();
A: I would need to see your DataContext to see what the issue is. I would begin by looking at the DBType property in the Column attribute that you have specified on your classes.
Cyrus - MS (Expert):
Q: No plans to implement anonymous class? So we implement anonymouslt an interface as it is done in java, I believe that it is useful.
A: Sadek, currently we think the conceptual overhead of anonymous classes is too heavy to warrant their inclusion.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Re: Dinesh[50]: That's exactly it: all of my entities have an ID and a RowVesion (and some other validation and plumbing code) in a base class -- but the actual entities are conceptually unrelated. It’d be great if you supported this scenario for mapping.
A: Got it - sort of structural (not behavioral) inheritance. Thanks. We will look into it.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What about the rest of LINQ in the December beta...will it be in parity with May 2006 CTP?
A: That is the goal.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: RE [58]: LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entity "alignment" - Will they both still generate their own object model?
A: We've been investigating ways that the two products could share entity definitions. I'm not promising anything, however.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
We've been getting lots of great questions, but we need even more. If you have any questions about LINQ, please go ahead and ask.
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When I use: I have error "An object or column name is missing or empty. For SELECT INTO statements, verify each column has a name. For other statements, look for empty alias names. Aliases defined as "" or [] are not allowed. Add a name or single space
MyDataContext dc = new MyDataContext();

dc.Connection.ConnectionString = "Data Source=localhost;Integrated Security=True";

dc.CreateDatabase();

dc.Connection.Close();
A: Is your context using attribute mapping or an external mapping file?
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: So Feb Oracs beta should have full parity with May 2006 CTP and LINQ to Entities plus all new features and fixes?
A: We're still trying to figure out exactly which CTP will have full parity. But the February CTP will be pretty fully featured.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Dinesh: add me to the list of folks asking for structural inheritance. I'd love to see it in C# generally, but that might be too much to ask.
A: Sure thing. Yes, but for the language it is unlikely.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
Don't just ask questions in the chat window, go ahead and ask the experts, share your questions with everyone.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Suggestion: Improve the Exceptions! It's impossible to debug exceptions that occur due to incorrect mapping without digging through Reflector!
A: Yes. We are working on it. If you have specific bad ones, please nominate on LINQ forum on MSDN

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=123&SiteID=1
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Any plans of dynamic attributes for C#, or even .NET?
A: What do you mean by dynamic properties? Is this like expando properties in JScript?
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
Q: What's the intended time frame for the Dec 2006 Orcas CTP? Pre or post Christmas?
A: We don't yet have a specific date for the December CTP. We are working to get it out as soon as possible, but it will be here sometime in December.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will you provide any implementation for LINQ to files explorer?
A: Because LINQ works over Object collections - this kind of already works. You can use the Fx to get a collection of Files and then query over the Objects that result from the API calls
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: If I just DLINQ in my ASP.NET application. What do I have to install on the production server, when the final release is out? A new framework version or just an add-on?
A: .NET Fx 3.5 (code name "Orcas")
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is this like expando properties in JScript? Yep
A: We are thinking about adding more dynamic extensions to VB beyond the simple late binding support you have today.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: If I use DLINQ in my asp.net application. What do I have to install on the production server, when the final release is out? A new framework version or just an add-on?
A: I guess that would depend on your architecture; but if you want to write queries inside of ASP.Net pages then you would need the new framework version that will be released with Orcas.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Because LINQ works over Object collections - this kind of already works. You can use the Fx to get a collection of Files and then query over the Objects that result from the API calls >> I wont return the list of all the files I have in a folder....
A: Not sure what you're trying to do... Are you trying to filter the list of files in a folder?
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: So the more dynamic extensions will be only for VB?
A: We respond to what our customers tell us they need. Would you like to see this kind of functionality in C#?
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
About 10 minutes left in the chat. We have lots of great experts here, please go ahead and ask your LINQ related questions.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Does anyone know what this is: application error: exception GIFException in module aviWUSB54GC.dll at 000252 AF. Anyone?
A: That appears to be a question you need to direct to Linksys, not Microsoft. This might provide a place to start: http://forums.linksys.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=Wireless_Adapters&message.id=1075.
Jay Hickerson MS (Expert):
Q: I think it would be good to add properties to the DLINQ designer to support designer parameters like: pluralize, etc
A: Pluralize, specifically, will be an option that you can turn on/off. What other types of properties would you like to be able to change?
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I want to select over all the files on disk D, all the files of the extension .txt, where it would not be a practical to return all the files of drive D as a collection....
A: Maybe if we can get Pablo to chime in on this one?
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: It would be nice if you could make EntitySet implement INotifyPropertyChanged so that an entity class with a entityset could be used for data binding (the delegates entityset provides only fire BEFORE changing the set).
A: We will allow data binding for EntitySet, for instance with a master-detail. I want to make sure that I understand your question. Are you looking for an event when an instance in the entity set changes that would fire saying the entire entity set property has changed?
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: I asked a question before, will be there any support for extension properties and extension events for example.
A: Not planned.
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert): of course I would like to see more late bind dynamic features in C#
A: I'll pass that along to the C# language design team.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are the LINQ to DataSet ToQueryable() or LoadSequence() methods getting dropped?
A: Maybe if we can get Pablo to chime in on this one?

Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: Any changes in anonymous types ...being able to return a var to another function?
A: Inferring return type - not planned (sigh!)
Jay Hickerson MS (Expert):
Q: Is it possible to add versioning to the DLINQ designer and an option to create a script of changes between the checked versions?
A: Versioning and change scripts aren't planned for Orcas but I'll be sure to pass on your suggestion to the rest of the team.
Dinesh Kulkarni[MS] (Expert):
Q: What's the Orcas release schedule?
A: Best place to watch is our VP - Soma's blog http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
Q: Charlie: When will a transcript of this post be available?
A: I'll get a transcript up on my blog within 24 hours, and then it will also end up as a regular transcript in a few weeks.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
Q: Charlie: When will a transcript of this post be available?
A: I've posted transcripts of recent chats here: http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/archive/2006/11/29/c-ide-chat-november-28-2006.aspx and also here: http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/archive/2006/11/28/transcript-from-the-november-14-2006-c-language-chat.aspx.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
Just a few minutes left. Please get in your last minute questions and then we will wrap up.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Re: Terry[81:] -- If I have an entity class that has an EntitySet on it, I want to be able to have the parent entity class fire an event (perhaps the INotifyPropertyChanged stuff) when an entity is added to or removed from its child EntitySet.
A: We have an event that is part of the IBindingList behavior that is called OnListChanged.
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Any best practices on instantiating DataContext instances in a smart client? Create one for the entire life of the app? Or create them on demand as data is needed? If you create one will you continue piling up stuff in the cache or does it get flushed?
A: We don't do any cache flushing - the cache in monotonically increasing. Therefore, it depends on how much data is in your database and how much memory you're willing to consume.
Jay Hickerson MS (Expert):
Q: I think that all options which SqlMetal uses (pluralize - because of local names and external mapping are ones most expected)
A: Thanks for the suggestion. I'll review the options in SQL Metal and see which, if any, we can support in the designer. If you have specific options you'd like to see please submit them as feedback.
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
Q: What about extending the generics library?
A: Can you clarify? How do you want us to extend it?
Charlie MSFT (Moderator):
All right everyone. We are out of time here. Thank you so much for coming by and asking so many great questions!
AmandaS [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I want to select over all the files on disk D, all the files of the extension .txt, where would not be a solution to return all the files of drive D as a collection....
A: You can use the frameworks to recursively find all of the files on your drive D that have an extension of '.txt'. In VB.NET you can do this by using My.Computer.FileSystem.GetFiles.
Mathew [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Re: Mathew[97]: Well since DataContext creation is expensive (I would think) it might be good to provide a way to flush the cache so that it doesn't grow unbounded if you create just one context for the life of the app.
A: We do support the reuse of mapping information across DataContext instances, so some costs can be amortized. I'll track cache flushing as a suggestion, thanks.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I have a question on C#. When I implement an internal interface why can’t I mark a method as internal?
A: Interfaces define a set of APIs that are always as visible as their interface. It wouldn't make sense to define what are effectively private APIs in public interfaces, and internal methods are effectively that.
Terry - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Which makes me think -- Does DataContext do any caching of the metadata for types so that re-creation of a DataContext class isn't expensive after the first time?
A: That is a feature that we just finished working on and you should see it in the Feb CTP

Mike Pizzo [MS]:

Q: sadek: What is the key deffirence between ADO.NET Entities and LINQ To SQL ?

A: LINQ to SQL provides a simple mapping of classes directly to tables (or table valued functions, views, or stored procedures) within your storage schema. LINQ to Entities maps classes to a conceptual "entity model" that can provide more advanced mappings to your relational store, if required.

Mike Pizzo [MS]:

Q: Joe Rattz asked the experts: When will we see a first working CTP/Beta including LINQ to Entities?

A: Mike Pizzo [MS]: You can download an August CTP of the Entity Framework, including LINQ to Entities, here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=b68f6f53-ec87-4122-b1c8-ee24a043bf72&displaylang=en

The August CTP of the Enity Framework works with (and requires) the May LINQ CTP.

Mike Pizzo [MS]:

Q: Joe Rattz: Mike Pizzo, I don't understand, I thought LINQ to Entities wasn't going to be ready for a while. Is it rough or fairly usable?

A: Mike Pizzo [MS]: The August CTP of LINQ to Entities is a reasonable CTP (meaning, fairly functional but not "ship quality" bits). We are checking production-quality code into Orcas, and the Entity Framework (minus LINQ support) has been in the official Orcas CTPs since October. Updated ADO.NET Entity samples for the Orcas CTP can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c14c451d-7043-44f0-87d7-845f1c238d64&displaylang=en. We will have full LINQ to Entity support in the February Orcas CTP.

Mike Pizzo [MS]:

Q: Joe Rattz asked the experts: Is there still an effort to integrate LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities? Troy Magennis: RE [58]: LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entity "alignment" - Will they both still generate their own object model?

A: Mike Pizzo [MS]: We'd love to get your feedback as to what scenarios are most important. Is it important to be able to share data classes between the two, or sufficient to be able to generate separate classes for each based on a common object model definition? Is it important to be able to do common CRUD operations between the two? What are the scenarios in which you would interoperability would be important? This is an area that we are currently investigating, and specific scenarios you can provide will help us shape this alignment. Please send thoughts/comments/scenarios to: Mikep@Microsoft.com

C# IDE Chat, November 28, 2006

Charlie Calvert — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 12:29:00 GMT

These transcripts will eventually be published here, but while we're waiting for that to occur, I'll post a copy here in my blog so that people can view it.

Chat Topic: C# IDE (http://csharp.net, http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie)
Date: Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=9&SiteID=1

Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Welcome to the chat, we should be starting up in a little less than 5 minutes.
We've got lots of C# team members here to answer your questions and to listen to suggestions!
When you are asking questions, don't forget to use the "Ask the experts” checkbox.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Hi, I'm Charlie Calvert, the Community Program Manager for the C# team. And it’s time for us to get started.

Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
I'm Keith Farmer, on the DLinq team. I liked the snow today.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Let's have all the team members introduce themselves.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
And the folks who are joining us, go ahead and send in your questions and we'll begin answering them.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
I'm Cyrus! A dev (which means I actually get things done) on the IDE team. You can think of me as the "Mr. IntelliSense" man.
Damon [MS] (Expert):
Hi, I'm Damon Tivel and I am on the C# Quality Assurance team.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi all, I'm Karen Liu and I'm a program manager on the IDE team. I work on a variety of features from IntelliSense, to formatting, to refactoring.
DJ Park [MSFT] (Expert):
A: Hi I'm DJ and I'm a Program Manager on C#. I work on the IDE and performance.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is C# 3.0 going to ship in Orcas or before Orcas or after Orcas?
A: C# 3.0 is going to ship in Orcas.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: Charlie, is there a scope for the "C# IDE" questions we're discussing today?
A: You should feel free to ask just about any question regarding the IDE that interests you. Some ideas might be: code snippets, enhanced IntelliSense, type colorization, refactoring, improved code navigation, metadata as source, edit and continue, performance or any other IDE features or issues that interest you.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: Charlie, whats the relation between C# and LINQ
A: Decent: Great question. LINQ (like many MS things) is an umbrella term for a large set of technology. Specifically, this technology tries to address integrating the 'Querying' of many types of data sources into a first class programming construct. To do that we had to attack the problem on many fronts. On the language side (i.e. VB and C#) we came up with many new language features. Among them are extension methods, anonymous types (aka tuples), and query expressions. They are designed to make querying data easy (whether that data be in memory objects, sql, or XML). We also added new APIs like LINQ to SQL and LINQ to XML to provide query oriented APIs around those data types. We're also defining a general query pattern that clients can provide to make their stuff 'queryable'. This is being used by many teams to offer things like LINQ to XSD and LINQ to Active Directory. Does that help?
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I'm having some performance issues adding to a SQL mobile database. What's the best way to add a lot, I mean 100,000+ of records to a SQL Mobile database without using SQL server?
A: We're C#-heads, mostly. Perhaps the SQL Server CE/ME forums would be a better place? http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=152&SiteID=1
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: Any plans to add more comprehensive documentation templates ala GhostDoc into the IDE?
A: There aren't any plans to add any features like this for the next release of the product. I'm always of two minds about features like GhostDoc. GhostDoc is able to infer the documentation to generate from the signature of the method that you've defined. If you can infer it from the signature, do you really need the documentation? Of course, there are plenty of people that love GhostDoc and we've heard the request before. It'll stay on our suggestion list, and we'll keep reviewing it as we plan for future versions.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: What C# IDE enhancements are planned for the next release?
A: Kirill: I don't have an exhaustive list of new IDE features. But here are a few. First off, one of our primary goals was to support the new 3.0 language (i.e. in IntelliSense). That's involving a heck of a lot of work re-architecting our IntelliSense engine to make it faster and smarter about C#. So, you should see a dramatic increase in the quality of IntelliSense provided. While it may not seem that difficult, the 3.0 language constructs introduce a lot of rich semantics that are quite hard to do quickly and incrementally. We're also trying to improve many of other features as well (like formatting) in response to some top customer requests.
DJ Park [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will Orcas be able to target the 2.0 framework or will it be 3.0 specific?
A: You'll be able to target frameworks 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5 for your Orcas applications.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: IntelliSense question: does IntelliSense "cache" cpp settings in any way? We've seen build errors due to building a different project than the one a file was opened from.
A: Gotdotnet: Could you clarify a bit? Are you using a project with both C# and C++? Or is this a C# only project?
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: With the inclusion of LINQ, will we get some SQL based IntelliSense? (ie drop down for columns)
A: LINQ to SQL works using classes, so IntelliSense works normally -- the IDE doesn't talk to the database to get IntelliSense information. Instead, it'll display members on your entity types just as it would any other type.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will I be able to use C# 3.0 to compile assemblies for .NET Framework 2.0?
A: No, you won't. You'll be able to use Orcas to target the .NET Framework 2.0 and create projects targeting only 2.0, but you won't be able to use C# 3.0 to compile assemblies for .NET 2.0.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: In what way can tuples be used as return types of methods? I mean, can I write: public (int, int) GetMinMax() { return (0,3); }
A: Kirill, you aren't allowed to do that. :( We're thinking about ways we could expose anonymous types at the global level. However, for now, our guidance is "create a new class to handle that". We're thinking about providing a refactoring to help achieve that goal.
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: Could we clarify whether "next release" means Orcas or SP1?
A: When we say next release, we most certainly mean Orcas. Visual Studio 2005 SP1 is well on its way, however, and is technically our "next release." :0)
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: The performance changes that are being made for Visual Studio, is that just Orcas or is that for a future SP for 2005?
A: Hey Peter - which performance changes are you referring to? There were a number of performance improvements made in SP1 (which will be available soon), and we'll likely review the ones that we make after SP1 ships for future SPs.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What is Orcas applications?
A: "Orcas" is the next release of .NET. .NET 2.0 was "Whidbey". "WinFx" became .NET 3.0. "Orcas" will be next.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: Can we expect additional refactoring functionality in Orcas, i.e. automatically changing a class' namespace when you move it to a different folder?
A: Korben: I wish I could say that that was on our list. We definitely see the value in providing that feature. However, right now, it just didn’t make the cut. :( I'd definitely like to see us getting around to that in the future when we have more time.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: re: Q10...not 1.1? :(
A: Michael: Afraid not :(
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Any new IDE features to specifically support LINQ? Any new refactorings?
A: Yes, you'll see a variety for features that support LINQ, including things like a new formatting engine for C# 3.0 constructs, improved IntelliSense, improved quick info and refactoring support. As for new refactorings specific for LINQ, we're considering a few such as change to explict type (when using var) and creating a named type from an anonymous type. Are there refactorings or features you'd particularly like to see?
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: About GhostDoc, I use it more to copy the documentation from a method I am overriding than to modify or create documentation. I am more interested in that functionality than the simple derive the interface information. Also exception info is nice.
A: Good point; I've always thought that a good way to solve the copying of documentation information would be to have the IDE simply reuse the documentation from the method that you're overriding. That way if you needed to edit it, you wouldn't need to change multiple copies. Once again though, copying is the most practical solution at the moment since the IDE doesn't do that. Exception info is indeed nice.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: IntelliSense follow up: C++ projects are present, but the problem is only with the C# projects. We build the same source for both CF and Full .NET, but with ifdefs. Sometimes the compile errors indicate that the wrong ifdefs were used during the build.
A: Gotdotnet: I see. That's very interesting. I don't think that we've seen that problem before. Are you able to consistently see this? Or is it something nondeterministic? If you can get a repro for us we would *love* it if you could file a bug on this on the 'Connect' site. Also, as for Orcas, I can tell you that we're *massively* refactoring the portion of architecture related to source file handling (Which includes #ifdefs). I hope that it will help in that area!
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Can I get a list of change records in DLINQ without using reflection?
A: Not directly, but you can try using the GetChangeText method on your data context and parsing that.
DJ Park [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: How would "targeting" .NET 3.0 be different than 2.0? Wouldn't creating a 3.0 application simply include more reference than a 2.0 app?
A: "Targeting" a certain framework simply means that Visual Studio will help you create applications for that particular framework (i.e. disallowing unsupported references). For example, a project targeting 2.0 will not allow the user to add a reference to 3.0 references.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: About the smarter IntelliSense: Will Orcas give proper IntelliSense when you use a method that has been overloaded with the same set of arguments, such as DateTime.Subtract?
A: Korben: Yes! :) Plus a lot more cool stuff. It will handle operator overloading. So (start - DateTime.Now) and then hit <dot>, you'll get IntelliSense.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will there be a Query Expression Pattern => Query using Extension Methods. I'm finding that as soon as you want to use the more exotic Standard Query Operators you have to rewrite it. (you don't have to, but its easier to read when in one format)
A: Matt Warren (see the LINQ Forums) would be a better authority, but making query building easier is something we've been looking at.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Hey Keith we meet again lol.
A: Stalker! :)
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: IntelliSense: I haven't been able to reproduce the problem on demand, that's why I'm fishing for hints of what the "nondeterministic aspect" is. We do see it often (multiple machines, developers, etc.), but haven't been able to narrow it down.
A: Gotdotnet: I'm really sorry to hear that. We would really like to get a bug from you on this so that we can investigate the problem. My guess is that it's a bug in our incremental tokenizer. It might work if you close/open the file that you're having the problem with (since that forces a full tokenization). Is this in VS2003 or 2005?
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Karen: what about Extract Method on a query? Will it automatically infer the return type and create a named type for the return type?
A: You'll be able to extract expressions inside a query expression or the entire query itself. In the case where you take the entire query expression, we will be able to infer the return type.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: Hi, Is there a way compile my C# program using devenv.exe or nmake.exe from a network server which installed the VS2005 IDE?
A: Yanco: Have you tried just using MSBuild or NANT? Can you tell us a little more about the problem you are having?
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: Any plans to provide WYSIWYG editing of XML documentation comments in the IDE, or better integration of Sandcastle in general?
A: No plans for more integrated editing at the moment, though it's another one of those features that we've discussed a lot. I don't know what Sandcastle's plans are. It's possible they plan to write an add-in that would integrate their functionality better. Shoot me a mail at ansonh@microsoft.com and I'll find out more for you.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Decent, mine is karenliu@microsoft
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: What is new in 3.0 with respect to the debugging? Any exciting new features??
A: Prasanna: The debugger team is a different team than ours. However, we do coordinate on some features. One new feature in debugging that we're responsible for is a better debugging experience for IEnumerable objects. Specifically, we'll evaluate IEnumerable so that we can show you what values you will be getting out of it. As you can imagine this is incredibly useful for query debugging. Otherwise you just have this opaque query object that you can't do diddly squat with. Now at least you can see if you're going to be getting reasonable values out of it!
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: Anson: Specifically post SP1 beta performance enhancements (assuming SP1 RTM won't be that much different then beta)...
A: We don't have any planned for a future SP (you're right in that SP1 RTM will be similar to the Beta), but if there are performance problems that you think need to be addressed (and aren't by SP1), please let me know what they are and we'll see what we can do.
DJ Park [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @DJ: So, even though 3.0 aggregates 2.0 you can't use 3.0 added assemblies like WPF without "targeting" 3.0?
A: If you're working in a project that targets 2.0, then references for 3.0 specific features will be grayed out in the "Add References" dialog. This doesn't mean that you can't browse for the reference and manually add the reference even though code would most likely break as a result.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are we going to see some bigger step in closing the gap between VS IDE helpers and ReSharper add-in? There was a litle improvment in VS 2005, but there are many that are missing, and some of them are not as good as in Resharper.
A: boban - With regards to ReSharper in Orcas, you'll see a few IDE enhancements, but the majority of features will be focused on design-time support for LINQ. We definitely want to move closer to some of the features that ReSharper currently has though and we are always looking for more ways to make developers more productive. If you have a set of top features that you really use in ReSharper, I'd love to hear more. Feel free to follow-up at karenliu@microsoft.com.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
A: We've got plenty of time left. Keep those questions coming. There are lots of experts here to answer any questions that might be on your mind. These guys are hungry to answer questions. Give them lots to work with....
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: Regarding the GhostDoc discussion: Some official way to "inherit" documentation when overriding methods would make GhostDoc less necessary. In fact, I'm surprised that's not the default behavior of the compiler.
A: This is a two sided coin. One way to look at it is that the documentation generator can simply take care of this. The tool would simply look for all overridden methods and generate the documentation based off of the method that they override. That way you don't really need an official way to document them, since it would be taken care of by the tool. On the other hand, if the IDE doesn't understand this, then you won't get the comments in the quick info that appears. I agree, this is a hole that we need to fill.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: What are, in a nutshell, the most important improvements and new features in Orcas?
A: Korben: Without question the most important C# improvement and feature in Orcas is the 3.0 language. It's an incredibly step forward in making more power available to you and for making programming simpler and safer. However, the language improvements are large and deep and it's taking a considerable amount of man power just getting that enormous spec change supported. We prioritized the compiler work and IntelliSense work ahead of pretty much everything here. First, because without the compiler the new language is pretty much useless. Second, because without IntelliSense, using the new constructs would be very frustrating since you wouldn't get the same level of experience in 3.0 as you were used to in 1.0 and 2.0. Now, on top of that, you'll see a whole host of smaller improvements across the board. We have been working on every feature and working on both fixing bugs and fitting in smaller improvements that we thought we had the time for. So, overall it should be a great improvement over 2005.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: I've heard many complaints about IntelliSense. I haven't seen most of what people are complaining about, largely they're not reproducible.
A: Peter: any more info would be fantastic. I'd love to be able to help get rid of any and all complaints with IntelliSense!
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: I've started compiling a list; I just haven't had the time to complete and mail it... There are many areas though...
A: That's great Peter, thanks. We will, obviously, address as many as we possibly can. The sooner we know about them, the better chance we'll have of getting them in Orcas and any future SP.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: IntelliSense: VS 2005. Closing the files usually makes it go away, but I don't know how to make the problem come back. Never happens in MSBuild, only in the IDE. Setting "external compiler" variable seems to help, but breaks IntelliSense.
A: Gotdotnet: I see :( Well, that definitely sounds like a bug in the incremental tokenizer. Unfortunately, I don’t think we've seen that, and so it most likely wasn't fixed for SP1. If you can ever figure out what you were doing that made it happen (Even just a general idea), please give us a bug and we'll work hard to see if we can uncover what the root cause is. I'm very hopeful though that this is gone from our current bits (which you'll see in the beta) given all the work we've done in improving our architecture here.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Active State's Komodo editor allows one to see changes to color syntax changes real time in a modal window. Is there anything such like that planned for the next version? I find it a pain to change colors apply...then repeat the process.
A: Nothing planned right now. This is a good suggestion though. We'll take it as feedback as we're planning for the future.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: I have a development team who want to use their laptops for coding without installing the VS2005, so we are looking to install the compiler on the LAN instead of on each single machine.
A: Yanco: The C# compiler is itsy bitsy :) And it comes with the .Net runtime (just 20 MB). Would that be an ok install for their laptops?
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Could you please provide us with a starting point to learn LINQ? Maybe a couple of links to get us up to speed on LINQ - some introductory articles maybe?
A: LINQ Forums: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=123&SiteID=1 Many people here also post there, as well as a variety of MVPs. Also try http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/archive/2006/10/29/technical-links-to-linq.aspx.

Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: If an exception occurs in a multiline anonymous method, the line and column numbers always refer to the first line, even though an anonymous method can be multiline - this makes it difficult to figure out what exactly went wrong inside the anonymous method
A: Kirill: I wasn't aware of that. And that does sound like a rather sucky user experience! I'm going to file a bug for you on this so that we can try to do better in Orcas. This will be especially important as people start using lambdas (which are pretty much just like anon-methods). Anything else you'd like to see improved?
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: @Cyrus: If I can't reproduce it I don't follow through with it (no point, it will just get ignored). Some comments are "IntelliSene is broken" or "IntelliSense doesn't work with C++"--which are vague and can't really be followed up...
A: Peter: Something as vague as that will probably get a "no repro" :( However, if you can give us your project, and sort of tell us what you were doing at the time (i.e. I was typing in this method, and all of a sudden things broke), then we can try and figure out what's wrong. I promise!
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: Hey guys. I have not heard much about any "upgrades" to ASP.NET or ADO.NET for .NET 3.0 and beyond. Are there any improvements or major overhauls to look forward to?
A: Hi Andrew. First, to clarify, .NET 3.0 is .NET 2.0 with a set of additional components - Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), etc. Orcas is the next version of the .NET Framework, and will have some improvements to ASP.NET and ADO.NET. First, ADO.NET: this blog is probably your best bet for news and information on future versions: http://blogs.msdn.com/adonet (here's a post advertising their October Orcas tech preview: http://blogs.msdn.com/adonet/archive/2006/08/15/701479.aspx). As far as ASP.NET improvements, Beta2 of a great new framework is available for developing AJAX apps: http://ajax.asp.net/Default.aspx. You might also try Scott Guthrie's blog for the latest in ASP.NET news, tips, and tricks: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: On performance in Orcas: will the navigation bar be less of a strain on the CPU than in VS2005? I like it a lot, but not as much as I like a smooth coding experience, without VS lagging for half a second after virtually each letter in a method definition.
A: Yes, this is definitely a place where we know we have a performance issue. You'll see some performance improvements around the navigation bar in Whidbey SP1 and even greater improvements in Orcas.
DJ Park [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @DJ: sorry, I'm still not getting it. If 3.0 specific assemblies simply build on 2.0, why would that "break"?
A: To clarify, if a project is targeting 2.0 and it has references that aren't supported by 2.0, then the app will break when it is deployed on a machine that only has .NET 2.0 installed because required assemblies (i.e. Avalon, Indigo, etc.) aren't present.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: IntelliSense: OK, will do. Also, our solution is huge (120+ projects), so I'm worried that may be a factor. Otherwise we'll muddle through and hope Orcas is better. ;)
A: Gotdotnet: We made some pretty enormous changes to our architecture with regards to how background tasks work. Specifically, we moved to an architecture where race conditions between threads should be completely eliminated. It is possible that the problem you're seeing is due to a race condition and that the large solution size is exacerbating it. It would be fantastic to know if you still have this problem once the beta of orcas comes out. If you still run into this after that then this is really serious and I would love to work with you to track down this little nasty bug and to squash it once and for all!
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: I often see much grief from developers in the performance and reliability of the IDE in VS 2005 (include SP1 beta). Is there a specific mandate to address that or avoid similar problems in Orcas?
A: We're committed to performance and reliability, but I doubt that really answers your question. I posted a video that discusses more specifically what our plan is to tackle performance in the C# IDE/language service space (I think you've seen it). I expect we'll post a written version with more detail soon as well. We are going to make every effort to test for both performance and stress internally, but one of the things that helps the most is when we get feedback externally. The problem with testing performance and stress is that it's difficult to predict all of the variables (the matrix is enormous - machine configuration, platform, .NET framework version, etc.), so we definitely rely on the information we receive from CTPs and Betas as well.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Could you please provide us with a starting point to learn LINQ? Maybe a couple of links to get us up to speed on LINQ - some introductory articles maybe?
A: This is also a good starting point for LINQ. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/aa336745.aspx. Also here.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: @Cyrus: I'll see what I can dig up from folks the next time I encounter stuff like that, thanks.
A: Peter: I would really appreciate that! Also, it would be good if we could get a bit more information about how "IntelliSense isn't working". Does that mean a completion list doesn't come up? A completion list comes up with the wrong information in it? Goto def isn't working? Colorization is bad? Etc. etc. :) That would be really helpful. Thanks!
DJ Park [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @DJ: Ahh, okay. Forgot about the "ClickOnce" aspect of the target, thanks.
A: No problem. J
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: Cyrus, I think my question keywords are "remotely compiling". Since I also have lots of other modules still using *.mak files and *.sln.
A: Yanco: Followup. Hrmm. I would think that something like this would be possible. But I'm not sure how easy it would be. Have you considered using a source control system like Subversion or VSS so that all those files can be synced to the developers machine, and then update the build scripts that they run so that the final output is placed on a server? Also, I think VS Team Server has a feature called Team Build that might be able to help you out here. However, I don't really know much about it. Google will probably be your friend here :)
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will the user be able to specify on that the start page only solutions be shown without projects, in the next version? I think in solutions and not projects and the clutter gets to me. <g>
A: Unfortunately, this won't be in the next version. This is good feedback though.
Damon [MS] (Expert):
Q: VS2003 had a feature to sync the class viewer (CV) with the current edit caret location. VS2005 either has it buried, or the feature has been removed. Will the class viewer be improved? I preferred the 03 CV over the 05 CV.
A: Hi, OmegaMan. VS 2005 has the same functionality, but it has been hidden in the C# profile. Please check out http://blogs.msdn.com/ansonh/archive/2005/12/09/502020.aspx for how to expose Synchronize Class View functionality in VS 2005.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: If LINQ works as well as we'd like it to, do you guys have any predictions of whether it may eventually negate the need altogether for knowing T-SQL for general data queries and updates? Is this part of the LINQ project goal?
A: Well, from the point of view of LINQ to SQL (as opposed to the other LINQ implementations), I haven't written a bit of SQL in the past year that hasn't been specifically toward debugging our query translation pipeline. :)
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: Will there still be a bundled crystal reports component and what version will this be based upon (if you know)?
A: Crystal Reports will be in the Visual Studio Orcas box. I'm not exactly sure which version it is - I believe it is at least somewhat related to the Visual Studio 2005 version.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: On strings in C#: Since we all know that += is pure evil, is it conceivable that the operator+=() for string is implemented using a StringBuilder? The performance overhead *should* be minimal, right?
A: Korben: The answer to all possible perf issues is always: measure, measure, measure! If you're not seeing a perf problem, then it's not a problem! That said, I think the problem people have with += is that it will create a new string builder every single time that line is executed. i.e. if you have that in a loop then that could be a lot of StringBuilder allocations as well as additional GC pressure. However, if it's not a problem, don't worry about premature optimizations of your code. Work on clarity and architecture first. Performance can always be achieved once you have a good foundation.
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: yes, I've seen the video. Thanks BTW, they're helpful even if you don't get much feedback on them. Anyway, that dealt more with performance from the language aspect (IntelliSense, compiler, etc.); but that's not the whole user experience.
A: Very true - I specifically own the experience from the language aspect, but I'd be more than willing to help communicate other performance issues as well. DJ is also involved in performance planning and works with the VS performance team regularly, so I'm sure he's interested in your feedback as well.
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: maybe I'll mail them off one-by-one? Unless you mind the many emails that may generate?
A: Feel free to mail them in whichever way is most convenient to you. ansonh@microsoft.com - many mails with a single issue in each is fine.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: @Cryus: off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of is: http://blog.stevex.net/index.php/2006/07/27/intellisense-in-visual-studio-is-still-broken/, again very vague. But that's the impression of IntelliSense with a large group of people.
A: Thanks Peter. Unfortunately there's just far too little information to go on in his post :( Is he in VB, C# or C++? What is he doing? How is IntelliSense broken? Just getting a small bit of information would be very helpful.
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: one of the most prevalent is the references dialog. Also, when I right click the toolbox and select "choose items" VS goes ghost for at least 20 seconds. (SP1 Beta)
A: When you say the references dialog, do you mean the tool window that appears when you select "find all references", or the preview window changes dialog that appears when you're performing a refactoring? The type of information that would be great to gather is solution size, project type, the code element that you're trying to find references to (we do optimizations based on accessibility for example), project size. When you're selecting items for the toolbox, are you often choosing COM/ActiveX components, or do you usually want .NET ones?

Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Q: What guidance do you suggest for explaining how DataSet's fit with DLINQ. DataSets seem to have the upper hand on multi-tier projects, DLINQ for local.....
A: DataSets are effectively in-memory tables. Typed datasets have been (in my experience, at least) non-trivial to create and maintain. LINQ to SQL's model is much cleaner for constructing strong-typed objects for holding data. For retrieving data from a database, LINQ to SQL allows you to describe the query to send to the server (the syntax of which may vary from database to database), whereas DataSet is typically filled using a query that the developer specifies in a string. That said, there is a LINQ to DataSet implementation to help marry the two somewhat.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: I know that if I write a LINQ statement in C# I can see its SQL representation and can test that, or maybe view what is the problem if one exists. Is it possible in the other direction? I will give a T-SQL code and to try parse the statement in LINQ express?
A: Boban: Absolutely. Off of the DataContext object there are several methods to help with debugging/logging. You can reassign the log output stream to something like Console.Out. You can call GetQueryText (or something like that) to see what the SQL is. Cheers :)
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: If you rename a method parameter using Rename refactoring, is your test coverage of this scenario sufficient to ensure that nothing unrelated in other parts of the project gets renamed?
A: Kirill: Renaming a method parameter should only affect symbols that bind to that parameter. The only time it would spread beyond that would be if you checked the boxes that say "rename in comments and strings". Of course, it's always possible there's a bug here... have you seen any problems in this area?
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: Sorry, references dialog as in right clicking project "References" in the solution explorer and selecting "Add Reference". Adding items to the Toolbox is a separate issue...
A: I see. I'll note that down and follow up with the references folks. This is generally slow because it enumerates all of the COM components in the registry. Perhaps we could split out the tabs. The toolbox adds another layer in that it scans your current projects for user controls to automatically populate itself; it turns out that's an expensive operation. I'll talk to that team as well and find out their Orcas plans.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: @Cryus: I believe SteveX was working in C++ at the time; but that's only detail I have at the moment...
A: Peter: It's my understanding that the C++ IntelliSense problem is *brutally* hard. There's an enormous number of hard language issues they have to deal with (like macros, templates, *huge* amounts of stuff included, etc.) that make accurate IntelliSense just really, really difficult. I know that in our project C++ InteliSense is often spotty as well. Unfortunately, we can't help much with this since each language team handles IntelliSense individually (since it's a problem space that's so language specific).
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Keith Farmer: Wow. A YEAR of no SQL code!! I know it’s not your department, but do you think this will influence major changes to future SQL Server versions where-in it can be a lighter-weight product handling data and XML, easily accessed from i.e. C#?
A: Before I joined Microsoft, I suggested it'd be a nifty idea to be able to ship query expressions directly to the database server. I know some users have expressed the wish to do away with the SQL side of the database altogether. But, of course, there's a large investment in the industry in keeping SQL around. I Am Not An Industry Analyst, but I wouldn't (personally) expect much in the way of getting rid of the SQL component of your typical RDBMS server.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: Cyrus: I think I've seen a problem when checking Rename in comments and strings where it renamed in ALL comments of the project... which might be expected behavior, but was very unexpected for me :)
A: Kiriall: Yes. That's by design. We don't know how to prioritize any particular strings/comments over any other strings/comments. It's unfortunate, and we might want to give a warning in that dialog that that's about to happen. Sorry for the inconvenience!
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: documentation: exactly. Also, if the IDE isn't involved in the inheritance of documentation, then you'll get compile warnings about missing documentation. I'm thinking maybe new XML tags that explicitly state "same as" or "similar to" parent.
A: Yep, that's not a bad idea. Explicitly stating it would definitely make it easier on post processing tools.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Let me try to change my last question a bit. What are the chances of LINQ being Step 1 to altering an RDBMS wherein it is no longer manipulated by T-SQL and instead works directly with a language like C#?
A: See [A75]
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: in terms of project size: bare-bones. If I create a new C# WinForms project, VS goes ghost for ~20 seconds if I try to add an item to the toolbox or add a reference to the project before I event choose anything from either...
A: Yep, I understand the scenario now. I'm not sure what the Orcas plans are, but I'll find out.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: Regarding feedback. This is a sore point for a lot of people. Feedback on Connect has the appearance of simply being ignored. Some people have stopped providing feedback with that tool simply because of that...
A: Peter, we do spend a considerable amount of time looking at all the feedback on Connect, and we take it seriously. Each question is handled by PMs who discuss the issue among themselves and reply to the person who submitted the bug or suggestion. You had some interesting ideas in an email you sent me the other day, and we have been talking about them among ourselves also. I will get back to you about that soon.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: Will there be more task-specific intrinsic statements such as lock() in C# 3.0? I love lock()!
A: Korben: hrmmmmmmmmm. I can't think of anything concise like that off the top of my head. Two things being considered were: InfoOf(...) and Invoke(...). InfoOf was like typeof in that it will give you the XXXXReflectionInfo object for any C# symbol (like a type, method, property, etc.). 'Invoke' was a simple way to invoke a delegate without having to do a copy to local + null check. However, both were deemed not valuable enough to make the change in this version. Do "query expressions" count as a task-specific intrinsic?
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: and this is on two different computers (both dual core running over 2 GHZ)...
A: Yep, this is likely the registry enumeration taking a long time.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: Mods: could you remove the noise from the guest chat please?
A: Kirill, I've been chatting with these people, and now warning them about their off topic comments. If it goes further, I'll start kicking them off the chat. Thanks for your patience.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: Cyrus: providing a scope option in Rename with preview dialog should be enough I guess: Scope = this class, this code compile unit, this project, this solution
A: Kirill: That's not a bad idea. Karen and DJ are the PM's for this feature and I've passed this feedback onto them.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: Speaking of rename, I don't have an exact test case, but the rename smart tag refactoring sometimes seems to get confused when I edit a name then attempt to undo my changes.
A: Peter: Yup. That's a known problem. Unfortunately (thanks to me), we over-engineered the rename smart tag. So it can be very smart, but very dumb at times (esp when an undo happens). My bad :( I'm pretty sure we've fixed this for Orcas though.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: @Cryus: will technologies like Pheonix help that in future versions?
A: Peter: sorry, it's hard to follow all the threads, can you tell me which topic you're following up on?
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: don't get me wrong; I understand why the references dialog is slow, but it shouldn't block the GUI thread (hence the ghost window) for that length of time... Just doing the work in a background thread while updating the dialog once/sec is better..
A: That seems reasonable. One reason we haven't invested hugely in that area is because our expectation is that adding references happens a lot less frequently then other scenarios (typing, adding files, etc.). If it's becoming a pain point though, we'll look at it again.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
A: There is now about 10 minutes left in the chat. It is time to start preparing your final questions.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: DExplorer: right now it's faster for me to request a search 2500 miles away via Google to find help while using Visual Studio 2005. Can someone outline some details on changes to DExplorer (I'm considering this part of the UI used when developing w/C#)?
A: There are a few things that are being considered for DExplorer improvements, as well as a variety of other help channels. For DExplorer viewer itself, there are plans being considered to decouple this from VS, so that improvements and new releases can be shipped more often. The other improvements that you'll see on MSDN online and through VS help integration is better search, through localized context, better help filters, better online search integration (a new search provider is being used that returns results using MSN search).
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: don't get me wrong; I understand why the references dialog is slow, but it shouldn't block the GUI thread (hence the ghost window) for that length of time... Just doing the work in a background thread while updating the dialog once/sec is better..
A: Peter: I agree with you. You should see a spinning icon with no blocking while the dialog comes up. Unfortunately, it's just a matter of resources over here. We don't have lots, and while it would be awesome to address all these issues, they sometimes don't make the cut. Just know that we are totally in agreement and that we'd really like to get to all these issues! :)
Damon [MS] (Expert):
Q: @Damon : Please redo the link for Class view link.
A: The link is http://blogs.msdn.com/ansonh/archive/2005/12/09/502020.aspx
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
A: About five minutes left. If there are any final questions, this is the time to get them in.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: Any chance of being able to specify non-C# projects as a "reference"? Having the "this must build before me" info in the solution file seems rather error-prone. Ex: a C# app that needs to P/Invoke a C++ DLL. Auto-copying the DLL would be nice too.
A: Gotdotnet: No chance for Orcas. But we're looking into this for a future release. The problem here is that it's incredibly difficult to have Project-2-Project references across languages since every language has a different architecture for handling symbols. We can do Project2Project with C#-2-C# since we handle all the symbol tables and we know how to communicate that information properly.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: I would love to see a forward-reference search like in .NET reflector, so 'used by' (like there is in VS2005) but also 'uses'. Is there any chance of that happening?
A: Korben: We have "find all references" already in 2005. If that's not what you're talking about, then please clarify the difference for me! Thanks!
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: What are the new P2P enhancements for C# in the new .NET Framework?
A: Sorry - we aren't very well-informed on this aspect of .NET Framework development. You can do about as well as we can by using a search engine or scouring blogs.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: @Charlie: looking forward to it. It's a bit of a slippery-slope with the "love-to-hate-Ms" zealots out there. But, it's quite easy to get the impression that "can't repro" is used too frequently...
A: Peter: I'll keep an eye out for the "can't repro" issue. But no one on the team would put a question off intentionally. We truly want to know about problems and want to fix them. The anti-MS crowd is always out there, but fortunately we also have lots of fans.
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Well, I guess I'm out of questions. Thanks a lot for your time folks and good luck with shipping Orcas! Keep up the good work! We can't wait! :)
A: Thanks for joining!
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: @Cryus: Pheonix, as it relates to consolidating IntelliSense for all languages...
A: Peter: we're actively looking at that problem. It's definitely enormously valuable (imagine cross language refactorings!), but also really, really difficult. Pheonix's work will most likely be invaluable here.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
A: Okay, time is up for this chat. Thank you for your questions. We will answer the remaining questions and then sign off.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
A: Thank you for coming to visit!
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Asnon: yes, they don't occur frequently; but creating a project, adding a reference, then adding something to the toolbox--done in succession--could take up to 5 minutes...
A: Fair enough - I'll take another look and chat with the references folks. Shoot me a mail with other scenarios and I'll follow up.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Q: @Cyrus: I understand, but from an end-user's point of view who will be stuck with VS2005 for at least a couple more years, resources on other projects (like LINQ) is irrelevant to them...
A: Peter: I appreciate the problem. But that can be said of all software projects. The new stuff being worked on doesn't help the people on the current version. I'm not sure what I can do about that :(
Karen Liu [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I've start to follow the instructions on free elearning about creating a first project using WCF. There was a problem when creating app.config content for WCF. What is the problem? Is this elearning not updated, or it's my installation problem.
A: What kind of error were you getting? This really depends on which preview version of WCF you were running and which one the elearning site refers to.
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: It seems that when I un-maximize the editor to a specific size, it remembers those settings even after a maximize and close. Upon a new session the maximized state is ignored and the changed size is brought up...anyway to counter that?
A: I've looked at this question for a bit, I'm not quite sure if you mean the editor window (i.e. you have the environment set to MDI) or you mean VS as a whole. There isn't a default way to circumvent this behavior if you mean VS as a whole; however, you could potentially create an applicaiton that launches VS, gets the window handle, and then sets its size explicitly.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
I'm going to stay on longer if I didn't get to anyone.
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: Thanks for the chat folks, much appreciated...
A: Thanks for coming Peter!
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: @Charlie: looking at details of service packs and hot-fixes there's no correlation between fixes and Connect issues, which doesn't give any feedback to the community that they're Connect issues make a difference... I know it's small and...
A: That's actually an interesting suggestion. We do respond to particular connect bugs, of course. But I'll see if there is a way to connect a bug to a particular fix.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: @Charlie: There's a VS quality thread going on in one of the lists at discuss.develop.com that outlines a lot of discontent with quality and providing feedback. A certain part of the community has simply given up providing feedback.
A: I've seen this, and I will respond to you offline.
Charlie [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: @Charlie: It doesn't represent reality; but it would go a long way to making the community happy...
A: I'm with you Peter, and we can talk more about ways to make this happen.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I’m using the latest db2 .net 2.0 data provider and I am building a query against a remote db2 database. Selecting a table takes a long time – a really long time. Also canceling an outgoing query locks up the IDE...is it the data provider or IDE or both?
A: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=45&SiteID=1 The people at this forum may be able to help you.
AnsonH MS (Expert):
Q: @Anson: The primary window, not set to MDI editing, with no undocked panes. Un maximize...work remaximize. Close IDE. Restart IDE. 75% of time it does not start in the maximized state (VS2005)
A: Oh, I see. It's pretty easy if you want it to always be maximized; right-click on the start menu icon, select Properties. There will be a run label. Select "Maximized" from the drop-down.
Cyrus -MS (Expert):
Sweeeet

Transcript from the November 14, 2006 C# Language Chat

Charlie Calvert — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 04:52:00 GMT

These transcripts are eventually published here, but while we're waiting for that to occur, I'll post a copy here in my blog so that people can view it.

Chat Topic: The C# Language (http://csharp.net, http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie)
Date: Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=9&SiteID=1

ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
It's about time to start the chat - we have several people from the C# Team to answer your questions about C#. Let's start with some short bios from the team members:
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
I'm Keith Farmer, a developer on the DLINQ team. They sometimes let me out for walks.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Hi All, I'm Cyrus, a developer on the IDE team. I work primarily with IntelliSense, but I like to dabble in just about everything.
Charlie Calvert (Moderator):
Hi, I'm Charlie Calvert, the Community Program Manager for the C# team.
Ben B [MSFT] (Expert):
A: Hi, I'm Ben and I'm a tester for the C# compiler.
Luke Hoban [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi, my name is Luke, and I'm the Program Manager for the C# Compiler. I'm currently working on bringing C#3.0 and LINQ into the Visual Studio Orcas release, and would love to hear any feedback from you guys.
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
Alright, let's get started - ask away!
Ben B [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What’s this chat all about?
A: It's an opportunity for you to ask us any questions you may have about the C# language. For instance, you might have a question about an existing language feature or you might have questions about the changes coming in C# 3.0. Ask away!
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: My first question is what is the status of LINQ to SQL versus LINQ to Entities?
A: Both projects are being worked on and both teams are aiming to ship with Orcas. We are aware of the overlap. :-)
Ben B [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Thanks for the answer Ben but when it comes to C I am a noob.
A: If you're interested in learning more about C#, you should check out C# Express. It's our free C# IDE and it contains a lot of starter kits that help you get started learning the language. You can download it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: So both LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities will co-exist...at least initially?
A: That's the theory.
Luke Hoban [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: So how about you give us a brief rundown of what LINQ is so we're all on the same page? My understanding is that LINQ will allow me to write queries programmatically.
A: LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query, and as you say, it provides the ability to write queries over all sorts of data using general purpose .NET languages such as C# and VB. You can query over in-memory data, like arrays, or over XML, or over data in a database. In all of these cases, you use the C# language, without writing queries in quoted string literals as you would with many of the current approaches to querying.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: Currently extension methods must "emulate" non-static methods. Is there a possibility of relaxing this restraint so that for instance operator overloading may be possible via extension methods?
A: Eamon, that's a great question. Right now we're only planning to have extension methods in the 3.0 release. We've been considering in the future allowing far more "Extension Things". i.e. Extension properties/events/operators. We like the power and limited complexity of just methods, and that's why we're only doing that now. However, based on our future feelings and the feelings of the community we could extend things further in the future.
Luke Hoban [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I have a question related to .Net 3.0, I installed .Net 3.0 on my computer with Visual Studio 2005 with no Orcas and no Windows SDK. I could not figure out how to add event handler to events. In PDC I saw someone just double clicked once and it was done!
A: You'll probably need to install the Visual Studio 2005 CTP extension for .NET 3.0 at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F54F5537-CC86-4BF5-AE44-F5A1E805680D&displaylang=en. This should have some basic Visual Studio support for .NET 3.0.
Ben B [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: In JAVA a method can declare what exceptions it will throw...will we get this in C#?
A: Probably not. There are a few problems (e.g. scalability and versioning) with current implementations of checked exceptions that we'd like to avoid. For a great in-depth discussion of the pros and cons of checked exceptions (and the reasons we did not include them in C#), see http://artima.com/intv/handcuffsP.html
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will they both exist indefinitely, or has the commitment been made to merge the two?
A: I can't really say, because nobody really knows. Both products are similar in most ways, but different in some ways. LINQ to Entities allows many more types of client side mappings. However, many of these mappings are slated for v2 of LINQ to SQL. LINQ to Entities offers a non-object yet mapped layer that is compatible with the current model of queries in strings and results in a DataReader. This is great for a customer who would prioritize mapping features and compatibility with the current ADO model over language integration and type safety.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will the next CTP/beta include LINQ to Entities?
A: The most recent CTP includes LINQ to Entities. It's in a somewhat prototypish state though. Expect a lot better experience in the CTP that will be named 'Beta1'.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are any experts here very familiar with LINQ to DataSet?
A: I am familiar with it.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: So the language features for LINQ as it's in C# 3.0 are finalized (syntax + semantics), but further evolution is possible after C# 3.0?
A: Eamon: The syntax/semantics are not finalized. However, they are certainly in a state where we're not intending to drastically or dramatically change them that much before the final release. Are there things (other than extension methods) that you'd like to see change? Are there areas you'd like to see us working on in the future?
Charlie Calvert (Moderator):
Q: What do you think of the pros and cons of the recent announcement by Sun to open-source Java and could or should such a thing happen with C#?
A: C# and the .NET API's are ECMA standards, and that is probably as far in that direction as we are likely to move. I think it would be great if we could share a bit more of the source to some of the API's, but I'm not holding my breath. For now, I just use Reflector. As far what Sun is doing, I think Sun wants to reach out to their community right now, and so they are finally giving Java developers what they have wanted for a long time. Probably a smart move on their part.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: The May 2006 CTP included LINQ to Entities? Or has there been a CTP since then?
A: I was referring to the Visual Studio 'Orcas' CTP's.
Luke Hoban [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When will the next CTP/beta be available that has enhanced LINQ?
A: The December Orcas CTP will have feature parity with the May prototype CTP for the C# compiler, LINQ to Objects and LINQ to XML, but not yet for the VB compiler, LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entities. In addition, the C# compiler, LINQ to Objects and LINQ to XML will include a number of design changes and bug fixes. The February CTP and further Orcas CTPs and Betas will see continued feature enhancements in LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities. On top of this, you will see improved IDE support for LINQ with each Orcas CTP starting in December.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: So with LINQ what have been some of the big problems you have encountered implementing it? What haven’t? And what (if any) are its limitations?
A: FallenIdol: I can tell you that getting IntelliSense working has been no small feat. We've had to do some major rearchitecting to get intellisense to work in all the areas that now make heavy use of inferencing. This is so we can provide a great experience within things like queries without you guys ever realizing all the complicated stuff that's going on behind the scenes.
Mads Torgersen[MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Hi, guys! I have a general question about current variable context return operator. Seems as "with" keyword in old VB. It'll be useful in sequential initialization, I think.
A: I am not sure I understand your question - are you asking for something like the "with" operator in VB? No plans for that. Object initializers are a bit like that, though, when you initialize a freshly created object, as in new Point { x = 5, y = 7 }
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
A: Rizwan: Did you try anything like: someButton.Click += new ... ?
Luke Hoban [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Luke : I installed the Visual Studio Extensions for .Net 3.0 but it did not help me. I could not add event handler to any control, Neither from Designer nor from Code...
A: If the Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for .NET 3.0 did not work for you, then unfortunately I'm not sure whether what you are trying to do is enabled with the basic support that is available right now. If you send me mail directly at lukeh@microsoft.com, I can get you in contact with someone who could provide some more details.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: LINQ to DataSet piques my interest, is the team looking at easier ways to manipulate offline datasets? (That's always been a hassle for us, it would be nice to be able to manipulate datasets in a "Query Analyzer" type of way...)
A: With LINQ given us a common query paradigm it would be possible to design a 'Query Analyzer' that could operate over any queryable source.
Mads Torgersen[MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Somebody, I think Charlie Calvert said there wasn't much in the latest Orcas CTP for LINQ. Have I got that wrong?
A: No that's quite right. There will be in the next one, however.
Ben B [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: So with LINQ what have been some of the big problems you have encountered implementing it? Why haven’t we seen it sooner? And what (if any) are its limitations?
A: As with any big release, we've found cases in which our specs don't solve the customer problems as we intended and need to be reworked. We've identified new problems as we're implementing and we've sometimes had to design new language features to solve those problems.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: Cyrus : yes I did it from code and designer both even I tried to push in XAML but I could not see the events in IntelliSense
A: Rizwan: What do you mean "I could not see the events in IntelliSense"? Could you tell me *exactly* what you're doing, and *exactly* what you'd like to see.
Ben B [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: So with LINQ what have been some of the big problems you have encountered implementing it? Why haven’t we seen it sooner? And what (if any) are its limitations?
A: The reason we haven't released sooner is that we want to get the right set of language and IDE features included - and to make sure they are of the highest quality.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: what DataSources is LINQ compatible with? Can I write LINQ queries against a CSV file for instance? or ORACLE/MYSQL etc?
A: FallenIdol: If you open up your CSV file in a dataset (or DataReader) then you can write queries against that.
Mads Torgersen[MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will extension properties be possible? This is useful to allow code to syntactically emulate built-in’s such as Array.Length and thus reuse the same code.
A: No. We're doing only extension methods this time around. We might think about properties for the future, but it is a much more heavy weight change, and extension methods do cover most of the scenarios.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: Cyrus: I tried to add a handler for Click event, it did not work with double clicking the control, I also tried it from the C# code like button.Click += new.... I did not get button.Click... from the IntelliSense
A: Rizwan: Are you using Avalon?
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
Hey guys! We're not even halfway through this chat - surely you have more questions for us to answer!
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: Cyrus : No! I'm using Windows XP SP2 (Not Vista)
A: Rizwan: Luke's going to work with you to get you in contact with the Avalon guys so you can send this feedback along.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: Cyrus : I selected Windows Application (WPF)
A: Yup. Gotcha. Luke's going to help you out with this. We know we need to do more in the tools space here in the future. Right now in the CTPs the experience isn't too hot.
Ben B [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is this chat session going to be available online for us to review later?
A: Yes, you can view the transcript of old chats at http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/transcripts/vstudio/default.aspx. It may take a week or two before this chat shows up, but it will be added.
Luke Hoban [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Since LINQ introduced lazy evaluation, quite a lot of code can be executed in a normally-written program in a single statement. This makes debugging more complex. Do you have any solutions?
A: We're working on a few. For example, we are going to provide expression-level breakpoints on lambda bodies and query expressions, which will give you finer-grained control over stepping and breaking when working with the larger expressions that are common in LINQ. We're also working on support for a query results view in the debugger watch windows which will let you see the results of your queries while you are debugging, so that the laziness of the evaluation doesn't prevent you from seeing the intermediate results if you need to.
Charlie Calvert (Moderator):
Q: Thank You Mr. Charlie. I'll contact him with a CC to you
A: No problem. I'm interested in this too. We'll figure it out.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are there any plans to improve dynamic type generation, the way that LCG improved dynamic code generation? I could really use something like "lightweight type generation"
A: Yes. The runtime is investigating adding garbage-collectible types to the runtime. This would allow you to create many dynamic types knowing that the runtime will clean up the declarations & metadata when you stop referring to objects that use them.
Keith Farmer [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Can I execute LINQ direct to SQL Server...like on a command object or whatever?
A: LINQ consists of the integrated query syntax, plus frameworks for querying data sources. In the case of LINQ to SQL, the compiler translates the query syntax into an expression tree, which LINQ to SQL then translates into SQL and passes that to the server. It'll interpret the results and materialize them into objects and return those back to you.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will LINQ to SQL always require generating entity classes at compile time?
A: LINQ to SQL does not require you to 'generate' them. You may use simply hand-crafted types of your own. However, it will likely always require you to have pre-defined types else there would be no point to static analysis by the compiler. The area we would like to improve on is the compiler generated anonymous types. We would like the runtime to have built-in anonymous types that would be compatible across assemblies.
Charlie Calvert (Moderator):
Q: Are you aware of any other database vendors working on LINQifying their dbs?
A: Third party's that want to create database access for LINQ need to create Providers. We are working on rolling out some guidelines for that process, but we have nothing to announce at this time.
Mads Torgersen[MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Any effort on being able to return an anonymous type from a function?
A: No. We'll try to make it as easy as possible to build named types when you're out of luck with the anonymous types. This includes auto-implemented properties with generated backing store.
Mads Torgersen[MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What will we be doing with C# 4.0?
A: That remains to be decided. My guess is we'll make it even cooler. :) We'll go public with our plans in due time, but we have to make them first.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: A large part of the existing .NET framework, and third party classes throw exceptions. When these occur in a query expression it's frequently useful to deal with them then and there (unexceptional Exceptions...), are you addressing this?
A: API's that throw exceptions will continue to throw exceptions. Doing so will end the iteration as the exception passes out.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: Sorry, does C#3.0=C#2.0+LINQ?
A: Dr. Wicked: if you look just at the language (and not the surrounding frameworks), then C# 3.0 is: C# 2.0 + Lambdas, Anonymous Types, Extension methods, local variable type inference, query comprehensions, expression trees, auto implemented properties, implicitly typed arrays, collection/object initializers. None of those are "LINQ" per se, but they all come together to provide a great experience around the LINQ APIs.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: Are LINQ and the other new C# features based on feedback from end developers or ideas from within MS?
A: We actually just pun up the random number generator and picked the set of things that it spit out :) In reality though, LINQ was heavily motivated by end user feedback. For years we've been seeing customers struggling with data manipulation and querying. We were also seeing a ton of duplicated work and wasted efforts across our entire customer base to support these scenarios. So, we decided enough was enough and that we really should do what we could across our entire stack of products (languages, platforms, DBs, etc.) to make this easier and more understandable across the board.
Matt Warren [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are other MS products already working on adding support for LINQ? Like AD for example? Any you can tell us about? Is there a list somewhere?
A: The AD team is actively working on a LINQ implementation. We don't have an official list.
CyrusN-MS (Expert):
Q: LINQ sounds kinda similar to the Apache Torque toolkit (http://db.apache.org/torque/) is it?
A: Well, yes. They both have a Q in their names. So they definitely "sound kinda similar"
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
8 minutes left!!
Charlie Calvert (Moderator):

Q: LINQ sounds kinda similar to the Apache Torque toolkit (http://db.apache.org/torque/) is it?
A: There is an Object Relational component in LINQ. In fact that is one of the important parts of the technology. However LINQ brings a lot of other general tools to the language, which when taken together adds functional (declarative) programming to C#. This is a fairly important new approach to development for C# programmers. So yes, it has something in common with Torque, but it has a larger scope that will change not only database programming, but also the way we treat data inside our programs, in XML files, and in many other scenarios.
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
5 minutes left! Get those last questions in before it's too late!
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
Alright everyone, we're about done. We'll answer your last few questions and finish it off...
Mads Torgersen[MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will there be a Tuple<A,B> type in the base framework for the LINQ release?
A: No. We think anonymous types are the way to go for LINQ. Gives you proper names and stronger type checking, plus data binding etc. Tuples are good for many things, though; we may look at them in the future.
ScottNo [MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: I'd like to ask about the WMI code. I have been using ManagementObjectSearcher and QueryObj but it does take a lot of system resources (around 10MB). Is there a better way in C# to gather performance data?
A: Sorry, we're really not experts on this. You can contact us through our blogs (like mine: http://blogs.msdn.com/scottno) and we can track this info down for you...
Ben B [MSFT] (Expert):
Thanks for the great questions! If you have any further questions, you can email me at bebrinck@microsoft.com
Charlie Calvert (Moderator):
A: Good bye. Thanks for dropping in.