Microsoft Linqs Data, Developers

Microsoft Corp. has introduced key foundational technologies that developers said could revolutionize the way they work in the Microsoft environment.

At its Professional Developers Conference here last week, Jim Allchin, Microsofts group vice president of platforms, introduced the LINQ (Language Integrated Query) Project, a tool set for .Net Framework that lets developers more easily access data. LINQ is a set of language extensions to C# and Visual Basic that presents a unified programming model for querying XML, objects, relational data and other data types, said Anders Hejlsberg, the Microsoft distinguished engineer who authored the technology.

LINQ enables programmers proficient in .Net Common Language Runtime-based languages such as Visual Basic or C# to query a database in their language of choice—without having to know SQL or XQuery.

"Im still in a state of great surprise because I didnt expect this," said Clemens Vasters, a PDC attendee who is co-founder and chief technology officer at Newtelligence AG, of Korschenbroich, Germany. "When I saw it, my immediate reaction was Bang! The world has changed," he said.

Also at PDC, Eric Rudder, senior vice president of the server and tools business at Microsoft, unveiled the Redmond, Wash., companys Expression Studio suite of tools for designers and developers. The suite consists of the "Acrylic" Graphic Designer tool, the "Sparkle" Interactive Designer tool for creating animation and other graphics, and the "Quartz" Web Designer tool, Rudder said.