Is LINQ to SQL dead?

Question

I read an angry BLOG complaining about Microsoft's decision to kill LINQ to SQL. Is this true? If so, why would they do that?

Answer 1

I've just posted a reply here:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4311587&SiteID=1&mode=1

Joe

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C# 3.0 in a Nutshell - in print now: www.albahari.com/nutshell/

Answer 2

Bill2010 said:

I read an angry BLOG complaining about Microsoft's decision to kill LINQ to SQL. Is this true? If so, why would they do that?

Their official statements in the ado.net blog are written in a way that leave a lot of things open for interpretation. But "kill" and "dead" are [probably] not the right words - Linq-to-SQL is part of the .net framework so it will be around for a long time before anyone can "kill" it.

There has been a bunch of msdn forum threads on the matter in the past, and there have been numerous blog posts and news articles covering it from various angles. Here are links to some of the previous forum threads containing even more links to blog posts etc:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/linqtosql/thread/c2718e21-ca80-4ab9-89f8-6a337ced062c
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4107623&SiteID=1
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/linqtosql/thread/06d2dbe5-e7bb-4209-a6b3-ec76d2310b0d
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/linqtosql/thread/3d762947-12c1-4567-a0dc-2b2e37c2bd9e/
http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4082052&SiteID=1


I think one of the Anders Hejlsberg quotes in this Redmond Developer News article makes it very clear that it is not "dead" and can not be "killed":
http://reddevnews.com/blogs/weblog.aspx?blog=3016

The article quotes him as saying: "LINQ to SQL is not dead. I can assure you, it is not dead. Nothing ever goes away. We have never done that and we never will," he said.


That said, remember that 99.9% you read in forums, blogs and news articles is speculation, guesswork and individual interpretations. (including this reply). And as for 'future directions' when it comes to Microsoft - their past track record shows that they have no problem changing direction 180° on something big overnight or even killing/dropping multi billion dollar projects much larger than any development tools/technologies they have.

We'll probably know more next week* on what direction these things are taking.

Answer 3

Thanks. This was definitely helpful (and a relief) as I just started to use LINQ and growing a bit fond of it.

To be honest, this bombshell was very much an unexpected surprise as the technology is fairly new... and disconcerting news, to say the least.

For some inexplicible reason, Microsoft often appears to take their developer community for granted and have a negative reputation for this. You would think by now they would realize there ARE alternatives to them and that abusing their base is not necessarily good business practice.

But... oh, well. It is what it is, I guess.