Today I would like to present an interview with David Sceppa from the ADO.NET team. Q: What is your position within Microsoft? [David] – I am a Program Manager on the ADO.NET team. I'm also the author of Microsoft Press' recent titles on ADO.NET and ADO. Q: LINQ to SQL seems to overlap with the ADO.NET Entity Framework, why two technologies with so much in common? [David] – There is some overlap between the two technologies. The ADO.NET Entity Framework was built from the ground up, focusing on enterprise-ready scenarios. For example, the ADO.NET Entity Framework supports more complex mapping scenarios, such as when the data in a class in your application spans multiple tables in your database. The ADO.NET Entity Framework represents the next evolution of ADO.NET and extends the existing ADO.NET provider model so provider writers, such as VistaDB, are able to make their data available via the ADO.NET Entity Framework. LINQ to SQL is a great technology that supports the rapid development scenario against the Microsoft SQL Server family of databases with simple mapping scenarios (i.e. a class can only be mapped to a single table).   Q: Will one or the other be dropped in the future? [David] –Microsoft is currently building on top of the ADO.NET Entity Framework within the next generation of Microsoft products. For example, the next release of BizTalk Server heavily leverages the ADO.NET Entity Framework.   (I have already told everyone that we cannot write a LINQ to SQL “driver” that there is no such thing) Q: When can we expect to receive a new SDK for the VS 2008 beta 2? [David] – Beta 2 of the ADO.NET Entity Framework, which you can use in conjunction with Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, is now available. You can download the latest here. You can download the first release of the Entity Framework Tools here. (Note: the first release does not work with VS 2008 BETA 2) Q: Will the ADO.NET Entity Framework ship with VS 2008 or after? [David] – The ADO.NET Entity Framework will ship after Visual Studio 2008. We've stated publicly that the Entity Framework will ship in the first half of calendar year 2008 as an update to Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5. blog post Q: Will it be an add-on (like WSE) or included in a SP? A lot of people are concerned about this citing that WSE has not been included in a lot of their projects because it is a separate install from .Net and some IT admins won’t allow it to be installed – So they are concerned that the Entity Framework as an add on will hurt adoption. [David] – We're still working on the plan for how developers will install the ADO.NET Entity Framework onto their machines. Q: Will LINQ (any type) be available for the Compact Framework? [David] – Yes. Q: Will there be a way to use the ADO.NET Entity Framework with Sync Services? [David] – Not in this release but this is something we're looking at for a future release. Q: Will LINQ syntax be the same between VB.NET and C# applications? [David] – As with most constructs (While, For, etc.), there are some minor differences between the LINQ syntaxes used in Visual Basic and C#. Thank you David for taking the time to respond to all my questions. I recommend everyone take a few moments and visit David Sceppa's MSDN Blog as well.