Code in the Dark Ages
When you find yourself generating N lines of code looking like this:
case "str_PhoneNumber": return "PhoneNumber"; case "str_AddressLine1": return "AddressLine"; case "str_AddressLine2": return "AddressLine2";
then you may think you have a great tool. I say you have a problem.
That kind of code burns the soul and blackens the skies. And, going through the Service Factory hands-on lab at TechEd-Developers and finding myself under those ominous skies, I couldn’t help thinking “This is an abomination. There must be a better way.”
And then I went to Hejlsberg’s LINQ overview.
Oh, the neatness, the directness, the sheer design beauty.
Just as we now look back with disbelief to the days when we used to have open sewage canals in the cities, public stonings on Tuesdays, organized religions with enormous political influence and indoctrination of the masses from birth (wait, oops, we still have that), ruthless state oppression, and ubiquitous slavery sanctioned by church and state, we will one day look back to case "str_PhoneNumber": return "PhoneNumber"; and think “wow, it really used to be that way.”