Is LINQ (or linq) a niche tool, or is it on the path to becoming foundational?

Question

After reading "What is the Java equivalent of LINQ?", I'd like to know, is (lowercase) language-integrated query - in other words the ability to use a concise syntax for performing queries over object collections or external stores - going to be the path of the future for most general purpose languages? Or is LINQ an interesting piece of technology that will remain confined to Microsoft languages? Something in between?

EDIT: I don't know other languages, but as I am learning it seems like LINQ is neither unprecedented nor unique. The ideas in LINQ - lambdas and queries - are present in other languages, and the ideas seem to be spreading.

Answer 1

Before LinQ, Python had Generator Expressions which are specific syntax for performing queries over collections. Python's syntax is more reduced than Linq's, but let you basically perform the same queries as easy as in linq. Months ago, I wrote a blog post comparing queries in C# and Python, here is a small example:

C# Linq:

var orders = from c in customers
             where c.Region == "WA"
             from o in c.Orders
             where o.OrderDate >= cutoffDate
             select new {c.CustomerID, o.OrderID};

Python Generator Expressions:

orders = ( (c.customer_id, o.order_id)
           for c in customers if c.region == 'WA'
           for o in c.orders if o.date >= cutoff_date)

Syntax for queries in programming languages are an extremely useful tool. I believe every language should include something like that.

Answer 2

After spending years

• Handcrafting database access(in oh so many languages)
• Going throgh the Entity framework
• Fetching and storing data through the fashioned ORM of the month

It was about time somone made an easy to access and language integrated way to talk to a database. LINQ to SQL should have been made years ago. I applaud the team that come up with it - finally a database access framework that makes sense.

It's not perfect, yet, and my main headache at the moment is there's no real support for LINQ2SQL for other common databases, nor are there anything like it for Java.

(LINQ in general is nice too btw, not just LINQ to SQL :-)