The Bit Bucket

LINQ Terminology 101 for DBAs and Others Puzzled

I was responding to a discussion in the SQL MVP newsgroups today about LINQ. A comment was made about understanding of the basic terminology and layers of software. I figured I should blog this as well to help someone.

  1. LINQ per se is unrelated to databases. It’s a language extension that provides an easy to use query syntax for things that are enumerable. You can build a “LINQ to xxx” provider where xxx is almost anything. The thing I find weird about it is that they used SQL keywords as operators at all.

    2008-02-22

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SQL Server 2008 CTP6 hits the streets and you can win an XBox

SQL Server 2008 CTP6 hit the streets today. You can get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=749bd760-f404-4d45-9ac0-d7f1b3ed1053&displaylang=en&tm

It’s getting pretty close to feature complete now. Microsoft is keen to have it tested like no other version before. To assist with this, they’ve introduced a bug bash competition with a bunch of XBox’s and other interesting prizes if you help find issues with the CTP. Details are here:

http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=7734

It’s time to go bug-hunting !

2008-02-20

Crocodiles and curiosity

Late last night I watched the end of a wonderful documentary from the BBC called Dragons Alive. Although Mai didn’t really want to discuss it at 12:30am, it really got me thinking about the nature of curiosity and its importance in how we advance science and through it, society.

Most awesome advances in science seem to come through people asking seemingly child-like questions. Some of the ones presented at the end of the show were great examples.

2008-02-19

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TechEd Orlando - 4 sessions and lots of friends there too

I got the good news today that I’ve had 4 sessions accepted in the first round of approvals for TechEd Orlando. Two are in the developer week and two in the IT Pro week. I’m really looking forward to those two weeks as TechEd’s are always great events.

Good to see so many of my colleagues also doing sessions. Peter Myers has two precons together with Douglas McDowell and Craig Utley. Peter also has two sessions in the dev week. Adam Machanic is really excited about his first TechEd session coming up. I just know it’ll be great so don’t miss it. Fernando Guerrero has an interesting session planned, Andrew Kelly has several as does Itzik Ben-Gan both of whom are always great value. Maciej Pilecki also has a session this year that looks excellent.

2008-02-19

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