The LINQ (.NET Language Integrated Query) Project is an initiative to standardize data access across data sources and development.
This is an interesting article by Arthur Fuller that explains why he's not convinced that LINQ will revolutionize database application development.
I can't say I completely agree or disagree with all of the comments he makes in the article; nonetheless, I found it an interesting read. Be sure to read the "comments on this article" to see how certain people have reacted to both sides of the argument.
Like Arthur Fuller I've always been a strong proponent of Whatever the back end can do, the back end should do. This certainly has to be looked at on a project by project basis, but typically the projects I'm involved in and architect have benefited from a separate data layer with stored procedures for data access. So naturally I had skepticism as I began reading, researching, and testing LINQ.
With that said - I don't necessarily look at LINQ as having to move all back end code to the front end. I think it ends up being strictly up to how the solution is architected and how the developer wants to utilize it. Unfortunately, with LINQ in its infancy almost every code-snippet, documentation or article has some misleading examples that make it appear that all the data access code must now be moved to the front end of an application. I have to admit with my first several examples it was simple enough for me to drop a DBML file in the web project and write some quick code to test it. But of course after I saw it worked I immediately created a "Data" layer and moved the DBML file there and continued testing. That way the data access layer did just that, access data, and the front end could use the data accordingly.
This comment seemed to sum up exactly what I was thinking as I waded through all the pros and cons of how LINQ will affect the future of database development:
LINQ is a tier neutral technology. On the front end one can use LINQ to query returned datasets, XML files etc and on the back end to query a database. IMHO the back end (data access tier - DAC) is the only tier that is allowed to access data storage like SQL Server. The front end can manipulate returned data from the back end but not retrieve or update it without using the DAC. LINQ is merely a uniform way of accessing different data sources. New functionality like LINQ does not force bad coding style, that is left up to the creativity of the developer.
So although no conclusive agreement has been reached in the development community regarding the future of LINQ, I am optimistic and look forward to learning more about it over the next several weeks and months...
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