Julia,

Do you foresee a day when Linq to SQL will drop off the chart?

I mean, once the Entity Framework goes RTM, and perhaps goes through a few cycles, what will be the point of Linq to SQL? Won't Entities do everything Linq to SQL does today?

Thanks for your insight.

-Todd

Hi Todd.
No I don't see LINQ to SQL going away. I talked about that a bit here on my other blog [http://www.thedatafarm.com/blog/2008/05/23/DamienGuardJoinsTheLINQToSQLTeamAsADeveloper.aspx]

LINQ to SQL has a big point. It's compact and great for RAD development. Easy to get into your apps. It does have some of the same drawbacks as Entity Framework currently with respect to tracking changes across tiers.
Entity Framework is a bigger technology and requires more explicit actions in places where it is not quite as quick & easy to just drop into an app. There's a lot of power in there, but if you're not going to take advantage of the flexibility of the Entity Data Model and some of the cool tricks that Entity Framework can do with the model, and you are using SQL server, LINQ to SQL makes tons of sense.

I'm actually doing a presentation about this (including discussion of datasets) at TechEd next week and have an article coming up in CoDe Magazine as well on the topic.

For a direct comparison of LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities (not taking Object Services or Entity Client into account) check out Elisa Flasko's article here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc161164.aspx

OK, thanks for the insights!