Having been training myself up in VS2005 and C# 2.0 it's interesting to note the current MSDN homepage pushing VS "Orcas" for download. Also, having come across the last episode of the .NET Show, LINQ is getting highlighted as a key part of the next raft of features for the platform. These events have focussed me to look around for resources on LINQ to get an appreciation of this new architecture for data access.

So far I am working my way through an MSDN webcast on LINQ from Nov 2006 (Google is still by far the easiest way to find anything on MSDN!) and the text-based resources for LINQ on MSDN are nicely set out although a little dry.

This got me looking further afield but there are not many books out at the moment which deal exclusively with LINQ, but "LINQ In Action" by Manning has an easy-to-read introduction which is free on their website - one great quote is, "You can think of LINQ as a universal remote control". Might Should Will invest in the eBook when the time is right.

Quite when I'll download Orcas is another matter. I'd like to appreciate VS2005 a little bit more first off (beyond the basic Console Applications which I've been running to consolidate my C# 2.0 learning).