I’m boning up on my LINQ to SQL skills again for a presentation I’m giving for Boise Code Camp. One cool little tool I’ve been exposed to recently is LINQPad. LINQPad is a great little tool for messing around with LINQ to SQL queries and testing ideas.
Point LINQPad at a SQL Server database and then you can write your LINQ queries right in the tool. No having to deal with DataContext objects or any messy stuff like that. It also works with LINQ to Objects and LINQ to XML; plus it comes with about 200 samples. It reminds me a bit of the HQL Query Analyzer of Ayende’s — just a lot simpler to use. The main point is that you can get nearly instant results from your query, which defiantly helps in that critical “getting to know you” stage with a new technology.
The only gripe I have with it right now is that intellesense isn’t implemented yet. That is kind of like flying blind these days. But who is to complain over a free tool like this.
Note:LINQPad was written in conjunction with the book C# 3.0 in a Nutshell.
So many toys, so little time. This thing looks very cool. Thanks for the heads up!
I have developed a product called Q-Expose (“query expose”) that reveals the I/O of each step of a LINQ query and runs in-line with your app. You can preview it at http://www.fencel.com.
Thanks for listening.