Title:	LINQ in Action
	Auther:	Fabrice Marguerie, Steve Eichert, Jim Wooley
	Publisher:	Manning Publishing
	ISBN:	1933988169
	Copyright:	2008
	Rating:	Excellent

I am a big fan boy of the new Language Integrated Query (LINQ) feature of the .Net 3.5 Framework from Microsoft. LINQ in Action from Manning Publication is an exceptional book on this topic. The first few chapters are loaded with clear and useful explanations of the how’s and the why’s of this new and exciting technology. The authors waste little time before showing you real and useful examples while thoroughly explaining the underlying technology. The book is broken up into sections covering LINQ to Object, LINQ to XML and LINQ to SQL with minor coverage of other LINQ providers.

Most developers will normally start working with LINQ on collections of in memory objects, so the book starts from this point giving the reader a tour of the numerous extension methods for the IEnumerable interface. This interface is the gateway for using LINQ to Objects and the coverage in LINQ in Action does not disappoint. Each extension method and their features are explained and accompanied by code examples in C# and VB where appropriate.

XML is the data language of computers and LINQ to XML makes working with that data easier. This section held the least interest for me because I do not work directly with XML these days; but if I need to, and I will, this is the book to get up to speed quickly. Some of the most interesting samples in the book are ones that take in memory objects and converts them to XML with little or no effort. This will be very handy for my Silverlight work in the future.

Microsoft’s main goal for developing LINQ is to help remove the impedance mismatch between programming languages and relational databases. LINQ to SQL is just one of many relational data access providers written for LINQ. LINQ In Action provides nice coverage of Data Mapping, DataContext object and usage, Queries and data loading. The best chapter in this section is the “Peeking under the Hood” where the authors take you into the guts of LINQ to SQL and explain some of the lesser known or covered topics, including my favorite tool SQLMetal.

Conclusion

I am glad to have a book like this at my side when I am trying to develop with a newer technology. The author’s explanations and deep dive’s into the guts of the technology have given me insight not only on how to do something but the reason behind it. This book was the single best source for truly learning LINQ and all of its standard providers. It has even helped me deliver a .Net user group talk on the topic. It is well worth the cost and the time.