Well, today I was working on building out he SIlverlightCity website and instead of using my old dataset/table adapter mehtods of the past in my data layer, I decided I would play a bit with Linq 2 SQL and see how it worked out.  After a few minutes, I can see I will not need to mess around with dataset/table adapter stuff for most work, Linq more than fits the bill.

It is so easy to query, update, delete, etc, without all the extra work, not to mention that the Linq to SQL designer in the Orcas 1 beta is pretty simple to work with.  The paging of data is also simple, which I am sure will come in handy many times in the future!

With all the wonderful technology that the next version of Visual Studio  will be using, it is hard to imagine the development world in just a couple of years..  That will give them a year to get up and running with all this great technology and the applications and services generated by developers should really raise the bar on feature rich, quality software!

If you have not played around with Linq before, here are a couple great helpers to get you on your way:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/ 2007/05/19/ using-linq-to-sql-part-1.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/ 2007/05/29/ linq-to-sql-part-2-defining-our- data-model-classes.aspx

http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/ mike_taultys_ blog/archive/2007/ 05/10/9322.aspx