>>I also would have to assume, based on your comment that you don't do UI, that we are not even debating on the same plane.
I think you're referring to a discussion I held with somebody else with whom I agreed that perceived "best practice" depends on the task at hand. I wasn't aware of any debate.
>>Personally, I think it's their marketing machinery at work. It's folks looking at dotnet vs. java and looking for technologies found at MS that could be added to dotnet to create a larger gap between the two.
But who would be the target of such a cynical marketing exercise? MS knows very well that the sorts of developers it is trying to attract are not the ones who respond to sound-bites.
In the case of LINQ, there seems to be a consensus developing around here that it is a good start and I'm confident MS will continue to add value to dotNET until it becomes a "no-brainer" for people using tools like VFP.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1