Steve:

We have decided we will not deprecate our OQL. Please read on.

WHEN WILL IDEABLADE SUPPORT LINQ?

The short answer: we’ll release an “early adopter” LINQ-based product at the end of February 2008.

This forthcoming product, code named “DevForce EF”, relies on two new Microsoft technologies:

1)    .NET 3.5 which includes LINQ

2)    The ADO.NET Entity Framework

Microsoft has scheduled the official (“commercial”) release of .NET 3.5, LINQ, and Visual Studio 2008 for late February 2008. That is the end of this month as I write. 

The Entity Framework, on the other hand, is not due until mid-year. Only Beta 3 is available today and its API is still somewhat in flux. We expect a CTP version (with stable API and tooling) to appear at the end of this month as well. At that point we will be free to issue a “Go Live” ADO.NET Entity Framework license with our DevForce EF release.

“Go Live” means that Microsoft has committed to the product and believes it is ready for you to build production applications on it.

These vagaries of timing complicate our own release schedule. Clearly we’ll have to adjust DevForce EF to conform to the “final” API. That shouldn’t take long – perhaps a week or two. At that point, we will re-release our EARLY ADOPTER version of DevForce EF.

SHOULD I USE “DEVFORCE EF” RIGHT AWAY?

We believe that our customers should move cautiously with both Entity Framework and DevForce EF over the next few months.

The developer experience will be a bit raw at first and we (IdeaBlade and Microsoft) have much refining to do.

We expect to release our first “commercial” version of DevForce EF – the one we would recommend without reservations for production development – in mid-2008 at the same time as Microsoft’s official Entity Framework release.

WHAT DEVFORCE PRODUCT SHOULD I USE?

This is easy.

If you want to start writing production applications today or in the next six months, use our current product, DevForce 3.x.

You will still be able to write your application in .NET 3.5 using Visual Studio 2008 and have all of the power of the .NET 3.5 language features – even LINQ. You just won’t be able to use LINQ to query for DevForce-based Business Objects. You will use today’s OQL instead.

Don’t worry. We are aware that you want to migrate to DevForce EF as soon as it is appropriate to do so. The good news is

·         You write applications in the same style in both DevForce 3.x and DevForce EF. The concepts and design patterns are very similar.

·         To help you cross over, DevForce EF will have DevForce 3.x constructs (such as PersistenceManager and our OQL) that translate to underlying DevForce EF technology.

·         We will have excellent migration guidance.

Migration won’t be automatic. But we expect most applications can be transitioned in three to five days.

If your application delivery timeline is longer and you want to get going with the ADO.NET Entity Framework now, we are eager to hear from you.  

DevForce EF makes the Entity Framework much easier to work with and generates superior business object code. You can build and deploy n-tier application with DevForce EF right away – something you can’t do with raw EF.

We would love to have you as an Early Adopter.

IS YOUR OBJECT QUERY LANGUAGE (OQL) IN DEVFORCE EF?

You will still be able to use our OQL in DevForce EF. We will translate OQL to our own LINQ to DevForce (L2D) queries under the hood.

We will not deprecate OQL in the foreseeable future.

We think developers will prefer to use L2D; L2D can do everything OQL can do and much more. But we are eager to support our customers who are migrating to DevForce EF and who will shift from OQL to L2D on their own schedules.

DO I LEARN OQL OR LINQ RIGHT NOW?

If you’re following our recommendation, you will start building your production application now in DevForce 3.x using OQL.

Knowing that you will want to migrate OQL to L2D, you should consider encapsulating those queries to make them easier to convert later.

Yes, you should learn LINQ now. LINQ is not just a database data query language. It is great for working with in-memory data of all kinds. You can use LINQ to work with DevForce business objects that you fetched with our OQL. You’ll want to make LINQ skills part of your everyday repertoire.

Yes, you should learn OQL now because that’s what you’ll need in the near term to fetch your business objects. OQL isn't hard to learn; you can master the basics in an afternoon.

I’M NOT READY FOR .NET 3.5

Our current product, DevForce 3.x, is based on .NET 3.0.

We expect DevForce 3.x to have a long life because many of our customers will not be ready to move up to .NET 3.5 for one or two years. Indeed, many will remain in .NET 2.0 for a long time (DevForce 3.x also works in .NET 2.0).

We will continue to sell DevForce 3.x in 2008 and will support it for years to come.

Greg Dunn

Training and Documentation Manager

IdeaBlade