linq? what is it useful for? and where are some good tutorials/how to's?

[Andy B]

Ok, I have seen linq mentioned before as well as seeing it online and in
vs2008 a few times here and there. What is it, what is it useful for, and
are there any good walkthroughs/tutorials on using linqToXml and linqToSQL?

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

On Apr 12, 9:08*pm, "Andy B" <[e-mail]:

Ok, I have seen linq mentioned before as well as seeing it online and in
vs2008 a few times here and there. What is it, what is it useful for, and
are there any good walkthroughs/tutorials on using linqToXml and
linqToSQL?

LINQ is a combination of framework and language improvements which
allow "mostly unified" access to data from a number of different
sources. In other words, you can write a query which acts on a
database, and a very similar query to act on an in-memory collection.

It's tough to describe very briefly without getting quite a fragmented
viewpoint - but it's a technology which I believe is going to be
*very* important in the years to come.

I'd personally recommend the "LINQ in Action" book (Manning) which
will give you a much better idea about it.

See http://www.manning.com/marguerie/ where you can download some
sample chapters.

Jon