>>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.