LINQ For Dummies®

Chapter 4. Working with LINQ in Visual Basic .NET

In This Chapter

• Considering how Visual Basic .NET applications differ

• Designing your first Visual Basic .NET LINQ application

• Creating applications with the additional Visual Basic keywords

• Using lambda functions

You may get the idea in some circles that Visual Basic .NET (simply called Visual Basic for the rest of the book) is a second-class citizen when it comes to LINQ. However, nothing can be further from the truth. It's true that Microsoft and many third-party Web sites tend to emphasize the flexibility provided by C#, but you can create some great LINQ applications using Visual Basic as well. In fact, that's the reason for this chapter — to demonstrate to everyone that Visual Basic is a good LINQ language, too.

There are differences between Visual Basic and C# when it comes to using LINQ. In some respects, Visual Basic is less flexible than C# when it comes to using LINQ, but you'll also find that Visual Basic provides some additional automation you don't find in C#. Consequently, using LINQ in Visual Basic can prove less difficult than working with C#, so there are advantages.

This chapter also shows how Visual Basic handles LINQ in various environments and with different providers. Using the information in this chapter, you can make better use of the examples found throughout the book (which are mostly in C# to reflect general usage trends by the developer community). You'll find that most of the examples in the book translate with ...