Linq to Sql vs. older 4GL attempts

Some thoughts on comparing Linq to older reporting languages.

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

'LINQ - Lessons that could have been learned from languages like Progress' 2/25/08
by Greg Low 
http://tinyurl.com/56powf

>it's still very much an add-on rather than being fully baked into the language.

I remain somewhat perplexed by just what you mean by this. By definition
LINQ is 'burned in'. This is the achievement that MS has accomplished.
To imply that it's not fully baked in is like saying a woman is somewhat
pregnant. It is or it isn't, you are or you are not:) Either a
table/entity or projection can be represented as a variable or it
cannot. That all these things 'can' be a variable of some type
referenced in the language is the whole point of it no? Your use of
'add-on' seems to imply that LINQ is something external to the language
much like an external 4GL like Progress. I don't think this can be
further from the truth. In your interview with Pablo Castro he referred
to Progress as an example of a language having 'direct line of sight
from language to database'. Wasn't he struggling here to convey the idea
to sql folks of the fundamentally different natures of the two? To bring
the 4GL idea into contemporary languages one shouldn't expect they are
going to be similar. And you seem to be implying that LINQ is not as
'natural' as Progress. How could it be? If you first have to define a
query variable (table) you certainly can't expect to start your variable
with a Select/Find. You define and then perform an action right? In
t-sql 'Select @MyNumber' only makes sense if your first declare
@MyNumber. Is LINQ any different? And in the sense that 'declare
@MyNumber int' is burned into t-sql, isn't 'var customers = from c in
db.Customers' burned into C#?

I do think sql users should listen to your interview with Pablo. It is
proving difficult for MS folks to convey just what they have done to
those outside of net. What is worse, misunderstanding it or ignoring it?:)
Shouldn't sql folks fully understand why MS thinks it's such an
improvement over sql? So far I think either they don't or simply don't
care.