In case you haven't heard, LINQ (Language Integrated Queries) is one of Microsoft's project codename for adding a range of features to C# and Visual Basic to allow programmers to write "language-integrated query, set, and transform operations". The idea is to use a combination of generics, functional programming, expression reification, and related extensions to the OO programming model ("extension methods" among other nice things) combined in a tasteful way to tackle several aspects of data manipulation and transformation simultaneously, in particular for in-memory streamed data (IEnumerables - basic LINQ), XML (XLinq) and database access (DLinq).

The latest release of F# (v. 1.1.8.1) contains everything you need to do some LINQ programming in conjunction with the C# LINQ "Tech Preview" release for VS 2005, including a translation of some of the 101 Samples (you can also use the command line compiler to get the samples working, though it may take a little work on your part). In this blog entry I'll give you an initial taste for how beautifully F# combines with LINQ, and indeed for how much overlap there is between the two paradigms. Furthermore, you don't actually have to use LINQ as such (which is only in preview) - F# is already a great alternative environment for exploring the concepts that underpin the LINQ paradigm. But before we begin you maight like to download F#, spin up Visual Studio and F# Interactive (fsi.exe) and work your way through the F# Quick Tour. You might also like to read up a bit on LINQ first, or you might like to see if you can get what's going on through the F# samples alone.

AW: Also of interest: Chinese Chess in F#