Martin, yes I've read that massive treatise along with a lot of other stuff. ;-) But that citation critiques elements of the prevalent "fashion" in many/most database tools in the past decade, even parts of VFP. It doesn't say that Linq to SQL is "full of constraints" compared to any other option.

Nor do I see evidence that the Entities Framework is somehow better in this regard. While I understand the declarative, uncoupling and flexibility buzzwords, I've yet to find the magic button that manages underlying schema changes better than a contemporary Stored Procedure/typed dataset app, a VFP Remote View or Linq to SQL. ;-)

IMHO another two important buzz words are "accessibility" and "productivity." I suppose it also depends exactly what the project is and who is developing it. And possibly even the language used- Beta2 brings extra query expressions for VB that aren't in C#. I'm assuming that's just a timing issue.

I'm sorry but I don't think Anders ever referred to FP as a "model" for anything. What I'm sure is he commented in FP having a form of integrated query into the language, but that just in a mix of other things.

Oh no, not another semantic challenge! ;-) He didn't use the word "model" but here's what he did say: http://reddevnews.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=707 ... that meets at least one prevalent definition of the word I used. ;-) As I said, it doesn't translate to "NET comes from VFP" (if people want to be semantic, perhaps this is a useful time to go back and see what I actually did say? ;-) ) but if it makes people proud, where's the victim?

Oh... This is because whatt your ears filter when Anders speaks is everything about data. This is part of our natural bias in the VFP community.

It's also part of the natural bias of Linq to SQL. ;-) If you're saying that Lisp-like features are being implemented in Linq and that Anders is describing Lisp-like features as "must haves" for future programming languages- then I apologize for missing your point earlier and expect that some Lisp people may be feeling very proud right now. Heck, if I had the opportunity I'd raise a glass to them. ;-)