Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas) has many new and exciting features for developers(Enhanced .NET Data access and IntelliSense for JavaScript are so far my favorites) and it brings nothing but good news for Microsoft CRM developers. I can clearly see multiple ways that CRM developers could benefit from the new Orcas tools. If time permits, I will write about them at some point but in the meantime, one feature that struck me a few weeks back is LINQ to XML. This feature allows you to write SQL like .NET code (LINQ-style) to interact with any XML document (in memory or on file).
As the Program Manager who wrote the specification for Microsoft CRM QueryExpression (a .NET based query language that returns strongly typed Business Entities) and was responsible for FetchXML(a XML based query language), I know that writing SQL-like queries that return strongly typed data would be appreciated by CRM developers. Simply because, most of the CRM developers are already familiar with SQL.
It shouldn’t take you long to use LINQ to XML and CRM FetchXML to build a Query helper code that allows you write SQL-Like Select statements against CRM data and retrieve strongly Business Entities. Scott’s blog has good descriptive data about where to start. Give it a try, it would be fun….
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