I’ve been working with both LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework on SQL Server 2005, and they work pretty well together. Now I’m looking at upgrading to SQL Server 2008 and I keep hearing about improved LINQ support, but I’m not sure what exactly is better.
Can anyone give me specific examples of LINQ features or operations that work with SQL Server 2008 but don’t work with the 2005 version? I want to understand what new functionality I would get by upgrading.
I’m particularly interested in any new query capabilities, performance improvements, or data type support that comes with the newer server version when using LINQ.
The biggest win I saw moving to SQL Server 2008 was way better date/time handling. The new DATE, TIME, and DATETIME2 types work so much cleaner with LINQ queries - especially for date math and filtering. Table-valued parameters were a game changer too, made bulk operations with Entity Framework actually usable. The MERGE statement support fixed a lot of my upsert headaches with LINQ. Performance-wise, the 2008 query optimizer just handles LINQ-generated queries better. Filtered indexes and sparse columns that you can hit through LINQ expressions made my complex reporting queries noticeably faster.
yea, 2008 has some cool upgrades! especially with geometry stuff and the hierarchyid type. u also get better performance and less headaches with query translation, it’s a big help for complex LINQ queries.
Oh nice! @DancingButterfly - what kind of speed boost did you get with those table-valued parameters? And @Liam27, you using any spatial data? That geometry support could be huge depending on what you’re building.