Linq to Sql should be important to sql users

My plea for the sql server community to look closely at Linq.

My comment orginally appeared in the www.sqlblog.com post:

'PASS presentation: What would you like to hear about?' 2/23/08
by James Luetkehoelter
http://tinyurl.com/5lmj4m

Your eccentric. Such people tend to be really bright. So that's kewl.
Your passionate, so your highly motivated. That's very good. If you're
'over the top' that means your not afraid of taking risks! That's best
of all. If all this is true you can take on the burden of tackling LINQ
and the entity framework. Now I'm not talking about the 'how' of it. I'm
sure there will be plenty of people presenting point and click slides.
What I am talking about is the 'why' and 'what' of it. LINQ/EFM dwarfs
everything else in terms of importance in S2008. It's a reflection of a
movement in a different direction from what everyone is used to. It's
also a reflection of a change in attitude. When I look for sql folks
tackling the subject what do I find? Frighteningly little or nothing!
Now let me say if you're willing to make the case that sql folks can
simply ignore the subject, have at it:) If you even want to make the
case that it simply represents an isolated piece of technology go for
it. Some sql folk are waxing nostalgic about past 4GL/xbase languages
when discussing LINQ. So it may be that many sql folks think it's quite
the same idea and wonder why it's structure is different and possibly
inferior to what was. Well LINQ is different, it's comparing apples and
oranges, and it can't possibly be the same. But how can folks really get
a grasp of such a comparison if they don't really understand the 'what'
of LINQ. Trying to explain 'what' it is isn't easy especially to those
sql folks who are not familiar with net or any other contemporary
strongly typed object oriented runtime environment. I think MS is
finding out that it's a challenge. Even trickier is to explain the 'why'
of it. The motivation for it. Surely it didn't come out of thin air:)
And the 'why' involves taking risks. You may frighten or alienate
people:) The 'why' cuts to the heart of what most folks believe in. LINQ
is a departure. It will have significant implications for what
development is and will be like in the future. It will take a very
unique person to put all these ideas together so they'll be really
understood. Interestingly, all the answers about LINQ are right on the
MS website. All that's required is to dig around and back thru the years
to find them. With over eight years of development this shouldn't be
surprising:) But how many sql folks have bothered to do this homework?
From the looks of it very, very few. Presenting concepts is much harder
than presenting code. It takes a very special kind of guy to connect
the dots here:)
I'd be happy to share with you an extensive MS list of articles/notes
thru the years about the subject.