There might be lots of DBAs holding their hands up in thanks over the news that LINQ-> SQL might be dead.
I saw a number of blog posts that referred to this note from the ADO.NET team about the LINQ roadmap clarification. In the post, the team that works on this aspect of LINQ doesn't come out and say that LINQ to SQL is dead, but they do mention that the Entity Framework will be their recommended method of getting relational data back through ADO to your application. They do mention that after this release of the .NET Framework 4.0 they will continue to listen to customers' feedback about LINQ to SQL and evolve the product.
You can read into this a few ways. One is that they don't want to admit it's a failure and that they say they'll listen to feedback, but won't necessarily commit resources. However I'm not sure that's the case. Perhaps there are issues with LINQ to SQL or they've found that it creates more calls and support cases for them. Microsoft is aware of the cost of issues, and for something like this that doesn't generate revenue, I'm not sure how willing they are to invest in it if it doesn't improve their business somehow.
I've seen people on both sides of the LINQ to SQL debate, whether it is a good development strategy or not, but not a lot of details from blogs and developers as to whether it works well. It doesn't seem that it has been used long enough for anyone to really make a strong case either way, and with the resistance from DBAs and those that see it as a black box they can't work with, perhaps it will die.
Perhaps it's just what it seems and that they have every intention of continuing work on this, just not as much as in other areas.
In any case, it will be interesting to see if the Entity Framework provides any better benefits.
Service Pack 3
It's not here, but it's close. This past week saw the release of SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 in Beta. You can download it now and give it a go on test systems. I'd encourage you to do that if you have had issues and wanted to stay away from the CUs, or if you have spare cycles. As much as I think this is Microsoft's responsibility to test, we can have an impact here in ensuring that it's a patch that helps and doesn't hurt.
Be sure you test jobs, maintenance plans, and things that might depend on times as well. We don't want any fiascos like the maintenance plan cleanups from Service Pack 2.
Tech Jobs
Lastly, I continue to see mixed news about IT and the economy, but be sure that if things get worse, tech employees will get hit. Be aware of how your company is doing, especially with regard to profitability and how you contribute to the smooth running of your enterprise. If you can't figure out what you bring to the company, your boss might not either.
Steve Jones
Steve's Pick of the Week
Brainstorming - Both Part 1 and Part 2, both by Andy Warren, will give you some good ideas. He's more business focused, but this can help you in software development, management, sizing servers, or just about anything. Worth 5 minutes of your time to read.
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.podshow.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.
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Today's podcast features music by Incompetech. Kevin Macleod has some great compositions in all genres of music. Check him out at www.incompetech.com.
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