Re: WO vs. .Net 3.5 LINQ

I do all EOQualifiers in code. With codesense and static typing of  
key constants, I find it easier to build in code. But that's just  
me .... so the ability to build LINQ queries in code is not any  
different to EOF. In any case, I have no idea about LINQ other than  
the intros on the internet ..... only that it appears a "new"  
technology. EOF has been around about what, 12 years?

 From what I can see, the LINQ expressions seem to be like simplified  
SQL whose syntax is recognised by .NET. EOF Qualifiers seem to be  
more OO natural to me in that I can define lots of little qualifiers  
and then and them and or them and mix them. I can take an existing  
fetchspec, extract the qualifier and add another qualifier to it to  
filter it further without having to know the contents of the original  
qualifier.

Also, it seems to only support MS SQL Server (well what else would  
you expect from Microsoft except monopoly and lock-in), whereas EOF  
officially supports about 5 or so enterprise SQL servers and probably  
supports many more ANSI SQL 92 enterprise databases.

I don't use Windoze in general anymore (except for testing web pages  
against IE 6 and IE7 in Parallels).

In fact I don't know if I like the LINQ syntax... I might as well  
write a SQL statement ....
http://geekswithblogs.net/technetbytes/archive/2007/04/30/112129.aspx

How would you take a whole bunch of LINQ expressions and combine them  
into one expression? In EOF, I can grab a default complex Qualifier  
for an entity from my EO class and add a few more qualifiers into the  
mix from user input and fetch against the final concoction pretty  
easily.

I love this line:
"Microsoft original motivation behind LINQ was to address the  
impedance mismatch between programming languages and database."

.... and then this........
# LINQ to SQL (formerly DLinq) {Queries performed against the  
relation database only Microsoft SQL Server Supported}

.... so what is the point if it does not have a bunch of adaptors  
that take a LINQ expression and generate correct SQL against many  
different database vendors?


Anyway ...... just briefly looking at the LINQ intros online, it  
seems little more than simplified MS SQL Server SQL built into the  
language ..... big deal .... who cares.


At the end of the day, the objective of EOF was to abstract object  
selection in a natural object oriented way and those qualifiers can  
filter in memory object graph or using a database adaptor can  
generate SQL for the one of many databases the developer may use.

It seems to me LINQ is no more than fuddy duddy simplification for M$  
developers so they don't have to build queries as strings. After  
reading about LINQ for 10 minutes, I would not even say it compares  
to EOF .... like comparing a bicycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Image:BicyclePlymouth.jpg) to a Honda CBR900RR Fireblade (http:// 
www.fireblades.org/) .... you are still have to work hard to go fast  
on a bicycle ;-) ... ah well .... that was an enjoyable Saturday  
afternoon rant against another hot air M$ technology that does not  
deserve any more attention than I have given it here.

Cheers,

Kieran



On Dec 1, 2007, at 2:37 PM, Helge Hess wrote:

> On 27.11.2007, at 03:11, Berney Bradley wrote:
>> I just saw that .Net 3.5 was released last week with the LINQ  
>> (Language Integrated Query) technology.  How does WO stack up when  
>> compared to the latest from MS?
>
> As far as I can see LINQ is similiar to the EOQualifier /  
> EOFetchSpecification classes in EOF (plus EOQualifierEvaluation).
> With the difference that you can write it inline in your source  
> code. In EOF you usually put those into the model.
>
> Greets,
>   Helge
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