Microsoft LinQ

Now-a-days application programmers hear the term ORM used more often. ORM stands for Object Relational Mapping. Example: Hibernate, iBatis

In simple terms, they allow object oriented applications to look at relation data as another object on which methods can be called upon. The layer takes care of the database specific details, thus leaving the programmer to think clearly in terms of just the functional aspect.

Microsoft has come up with LinQ which promises this on their .NET platform.

The Language Integrated Query (LINQ) Project will offer an integrated programming experience, enabling developers to query object, relational and XML data directly from within C# and Visual Basic – without having to use multiple programming languages.

Project LinQ is to be shipped with newer versions of VS.

Things to note:
1.Set of specifications that define how queries are expressed in API form
2. Extends the .NET Framework to include language-integrated query operations
3. Two API’s: DLinq, for accessing relational, SQL-based data, and XLinq, for accessing hierarchical, XML-based data
4. Compile-time type checking, which lets developers know about errors as they're writing their queries

It has been in the making for half a decade.

101 LinQ samples (written in C#) are available here

Thanks to Gangadhar for the links +"Things to note" notes.