Why would a Database developer use LINQ

Question

I am curious to know why should a Database person learn LINQ. How can it be useful.

Answer 1

LINQ has one big advantage over most other data access methods: it centers around the 'query expression' metaphor, meaning that queries can be passed around like objects and be altered and modified, all before they are executed (iterated). In practice what that means is that code can be modular and better isolated. The data access repository will return the 'orders' query, then an intermediate filter in the request processing pipeline will decorate this query with a filter, then it gets passed on to a display module that adds sorting and pagination etc. In the end, when its iterated, the expression has totally transformed into very specific SELECT ... WHERE ... ORDER BY ... LIMIT ... (or the other back-end specific pagination like ROW_NUMBER). For application developers, this is priceless and there simply isn't any viable alternative. This is why I believe LINQ is here to stay and won't vanish in 2 years. It is definitely more than just a fad. And I'm specifically referring to LINQ as database access method.

The advantage of manipulating query expression objects alone is enough of a factor to make LINQ a winning bid. Add to this the multiple container types it can manipulate (XML, arrays and collections, objects, SQL) and the uniform interface it exposes over all these disparate technologies, consider the parallel processing changes coming in .Net 4.0 that I'm sure will be integrated transparently into LINQ processing of arrays and collections, and is really no way LINQ will go away. Sure, today it sometimes produces unreadable, poorly performant and undebuggable SQL, and is every dedicated DBA nightmare. It will get better.

Answer 2

Linq provides "first class" access to your data. Meaning that your queries are now part of the programming language.

Linq provides a common way to access data objects of all kinds. For example, the same syntax that is used to access your database queries can also be used to access lists, arrays, and XML files.

Learning Linq will provide you with a deeper understanding of the programming language. Linq was the driver for all sorts of language innovations, such as extension methods, anonymous types, lambda expressions, expression trees, type inference, and object initializers.