Visual Studio Data : Data and Language Integration

This looks like an interesting conference (by yag)

YAG — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 10:02:00 GMT

There's a conference coming to Seattle that looks really interesting for language wonks:

The .NET Programming Languages And Compilers Symposium: Lang .NET 2006

Here are a few of the things that they'll be discussing:

Dynamic languages and scripting
AJAX and ATLAS
Domain specific languages
Functional languages
Object-oriented and aspect-oriented programming
Web-services and mobile code
Libraries
Language-Integrated Query (LINQ)
Compiler frameworks
Garbage collection
JIT compilation
Visual Programming
Success and failure stories
Non-standard language features and implementation techniques
Tools and IDE support

Great folks on the committee. Guess I know what I'll be doing in early August!

Data Access Layers and a LINQ update (by yag)

YAG — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 02:18:00 GMT

Sorry it's been a while since I posted. The launch in Israel (and the user group meeting) went great. Lots of folks, lots of good conversations with people there. I just wanted to point out a few interesting things that went online in the last day or so:

Scott Guthrie posted an excellent tutorial titled Building a DAL using Strongly Typed TableAdapters and DataTables in VS 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0. It's the first part of a series on building ASP.NET applications. Check it out!

The VB team has released an update to their LINQ CTP. The January release adds support for DLinq and a few other things.

UPDATE: Amanda has posted a list of changes here.

Off to a meeting!

LINQ updates for VS2005 RTM (by yag)

YAG — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 21:27:00 GMT

Now that we've shipped Visual Studio 2005, we've put updated versions of the LINQ downloads that work with the RTM bits. Enjoy!

LINQ tech preview update for .net 2.0 rtm VB
LINQ tech preview update for .net 2.0 rtm C#

OOPSLA Bird of a Feather talk on LINQ (by yag)

YAG — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:25:00 GMT

Next week, on October 19th, Erik Meijer, Mads Torgersen and Amanda Silver will be presenting a BOF on LINQ. It will be held in the Royal Palm Salon 1+2, 5:00 – 7:30pm. If you're in San Diego for the conference, stop on by. It should be a great session.

Language design choices and query comprehensions (by yag)

YAG — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 08:20:00 GMT

An interesting part of Project LINQ is the concept of Query Comprehensions. In essence, they allow you to perform a translation from a more declarative syntax to a more object based one. For instance the following internal LINQ syntax in C#:

expr = names.Where(s => s.Length == 5).OrderBy(s => s).Select(s => s.ToUpper()) ;

which is chock full of lambda expressions (Where, OrderBy and Select), becomes legible as:

(C#) expr = from s in names where s.Length == 5 orderby s select s.ToUpper() ;

(VB) expr = select s.ToUpper() from s in names where s.Length = 5

The key here is that behind the scenes the code is the same, but each language can define its own comprehensions to make things easier for their customers. One question this raises is "which is better From...Select as in C#, or Select...From as VB has chosen"? Paul Vick gives both sides of the argument in this blog entry.

New paper on XLinq (by yag)

YAG — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 08:14:00 GMT

Erik Meijer and Brian Beckman have written a paper titled "XLinq: XML Programming Refactored (The Return of the Monoids)" for the XML2005 conference. I found it very readable and a really good explanation of the XLinq API. Check it out!

As an aside - Erik won the Fear Factor Live contest at Universal Studios during PDC - and we're looking for anyone who got video of it (or pictures). Feel free to let me know if you have these <g>.

Some LINQ related videos on Channel 9 (by yag)

YAG — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 08:43:00 GMT

Some say that seeing is believing. There are three videos on Channel 9 that discuss LINQ.

Anders Hejlsberg and Dan Fernandez discuss LINQ and C#.

Paul Vick and Amanda Silver discuss the future of VB.

Paul Vick and Erik Meijer discuss dynamic programming.

More on LINQ (by yag)

YAG — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:33:00 GMT

Here are some links to various reactions and interviews on The Linq Project.

Visual Basic 9.0: Looking Forward - This is an interview that a number of us had with Dr. Dobbs Journal while here at PDC. Check out the transcript of the discussion with Amanda Silver, Erik Meijer, Paul Vick, Rob Copeland, Jay Roxe and myself.

A technical discussion on Visual Basic and Linq by Erik Meijer (one of the architects on the project).

Anders Hejlsberg discusses Linq in an interview with Infoworld.

Paul Vick gives a really good high level introduction to Linq.

Update:

Here's an interview with Paul Vick and Anders.

And last, but certainly not least - Barry Gervin is doing a great job capturing a lot of key links.

Off to the convention center!

Project LINQ - Language INtegrated Query (by yag)

YAG — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 08:22:00 GMT

Well, the hints have been going out for a while now, and finally we can talk about this thing we've been working on for so long. At the PDC opening keynote today, we unveiled a number of things including Project LINQ. The Language Integrated Query framework (the LINQ Project) is a set of language extensions to C# and VB and a unified programming model that extends the .NET Framework to offer integrated querying for objects, databases and XML. Basically, instead of writing your queries in strings, you can now do them directly in the language of your choice.

Let's take a look at a simple code sample. Let's say there's a collection of Country objects called Countries. You can now get all countries with a population ofless than 1 million with a SQL-like syntax

Dim SmallCountries = Select Country _
From Country In Countries _
Where Country.Population < 1000000

The great thing about this is that it works over database data, XML or objects (anything that is IEnumerable). So, for those of you used to, for instance, Fox - though the syntax is familiar, the capabilities are much further reaching in your daily programming.

There will be a lot of blog posts by members of the C#, VB and various data teams all about this. Also, starting on Wednesday (depending on MSDN scheduling) there will be bits that can be downloaded to test this out. I'll be modifying this entry through the course of the day (or, more likely, night) to point to other blog entries on this topic.

Boy it's nice to be able to show this publicly now!

Yag's PDC Schedule (by yag)

YAG — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 09:23:00 GMT

I'm getting ready for PDC - and planning to spend a lot of time in the pavilions and lounges to talk to y'all and see what you are doing with VS as well as your thoughts on our upcoming work. Here's my schedule - stop on by and say hello!

Tuesday, September 13

11am – 3pm VS2005 Product Pavilion

5:30pm – 9pm Tools and Languages Track Lounge

Wednesday, September 14

10am – 12:30pm VS2005 Product Pavilion

Thursday, September 15

Noon – 3pm VS2005 Product Pavilion

5:30pm – 9pm Tools and Languages Ask The Experts

Also - if any of you want to set up some private time to talk - feel free to email me directly this week at yag(at)microsoft.com - I can't promise to meet with everyone who emails, but let me know what you're working on and want to discuss and I'll do my best to find time for as many folks as possible. Look forward to seeing your all there!