LINQ-to-SQL vs stored procedures

Question

I took a look at the  Beginner s Guide to LINQ  post here on StackOverflow  Beginners Guide to LINQ   but had a follow-up question   We re about to ramp up a new project where nearly all of our database op s will be fairly simple data retrievals  there s another segment of the project which already writes the data   Most of our other projects up to this point make use of stored procedures for such things  However  I d like to leverage LINQ-to-SQL if it makes more sense   So  the question is this  For simple data retrievals  which approach is better  LINQ-to-SQL or stored procs  Any specific pro s or con s   Thanks

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IMHO  RAD   LINQ  RUP   Stored Procs   I worked for a large Fortune 500 company for many years  at many levels including management  and frankly  I would never hire RUP developers to do RAD development   They are so siloed that they very limited knowledge of what to do at other levels of the process   With a siloed environment  it makes sense to give DBAs control over the data through very specific entry points  because others frankly don t know the best ways to accomplish data management   But large enterprises move painfully slow in the development arena  and this is extremely costly  There are times when you need to move faster to save both time and money  and LINQ provides that and more in spades   Sometimes I think that DBAs are biased against LINQ because they feel it threatens their job security   But that s the nature of the beast  ladies and gentlemen

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Linq to Sql   Sql server will cache the query plans  so there s no performance gain for sprocs   Your linq statements  on the other hand  will be logically part of and tested with your application   Sprocs are always a bit separated and are harder to maintain and test   If I was working on a new application from scratch right now I would just use Linq  no sprocs

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I think you need to go with procs for anything real   A  Writing all your logic in linq means your database is less useful because only your application can consume it   B  I m not convinced that object modelling is better than relational modelling anyway   C  Testing and developing a stored procedure in SQL is a hell of a lot faster than a compile edit cycle in any Visual Studio environment   You just edit  F5 and hit select and you are off to the races   D  It s easier to manage and deploy stored procedures than assemblies   you just put the file on the server  and press F5     E  Linq to sql still writes crappy code at times when you don t expect it   Honestly  I think the ultimate thing would be for MS to augment t-sql so that it can do a join projection impliclitly the way linq does   t-sql should know if you wanted to do order lineitems part  for example

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LINQ is new and has its place  LINQ is not invented to replace stored procedure    Here I will focus on some performance myths  amp  CONS  just for  LINQ to SQL   of course I might be totally wrong  -    1 People say LINQ statment can  cache  in SQL server  so it doesn t lose performance  Partially true   LINQ to SQL  actually is the runtime translating LINQ syntax to TSQL statment  So from the performance perspective a hard coded ADO NET SQL statement has no difference than LINQ     2 Given an example  a customer service UI has a  account transfer  function  this function itself might update 10 DB tables and return some messages in one shot  With LINQ  you have to build a set of statements and send them as one batch to SQL server  the performance of this translated LINQ- TSQL batch can hardly match stored procedure  Reason  because you can tweak the smallest unit of the statement in Stored procedue by using the built-in SQL profiler and execution plan tool  you can not do this in LINQ   The point is  when talking single DB table and small set of data CRUD  LINQ is as fast as SP  But for much more complicated logic  stored procedure is more performance tweakable    3  LINQ to SQL  easily makes newbies to introduce performance hogs  Any senior TSQL guy can tell you when not to use CURSOR  Basically you should not use CURSOR in TSQL in most cases   With LINQ and the charming  foreach  loop with query  It s so easy for a newbie to write such code   foreach Customer c in query      c Country    Wonder Land     ctx SubmitChanges      You can see this easy decent code is so attractive  But under the hood   NET runtime just translate this to an update batch  If there are only 500 lines  this is 500 line TSQL batch  If there are million lines  this is a hit  Of course  experienced user won t use this way to do this job  but the point is  it s so easy to fall in this way

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Create PROCEDURE userInfoProcedure     -- Add the parameters for the stored procedure here      FirstName varchar       LastName varchar AS BEGIN      SET NOCOUNT ON       -- Insert statements for procedure here     SELECT FirstName    LastName Age from UserInfo where FirstName  FirstName     and LastName  FirstName END GO   http   www totaldotnet com Article ShowArticle121 StoreProcBasic aspx

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LINQ definitely has its place in application-specific databases and in small businesses   But in a large enterprise  where central databases serve as a hub of common data for many applications  we need abstraction  We need to centrally manage security and show access histories  We need to be able to do impact analysis  if I make a small change to the data model to serve a new business need  what queries need to be changed and what applications need to be re-tested  Views and Stored Procedures give me that  If LINQ can do all that  and make our programmers more productive  I ll welcome it -- does anyone have experience using it in this kind of environment

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Both LINQ and SQL have their places  Both have their disadvantages and advantages   Sometimes for complex data retrieval you might need stored procs  And sometimes you may want other people to use your stored proc in Sql Server Management Studio   Linq to Entities is great for fast CRUD development   Sure you can build an app using only one or the other  Or you can mix it up  It all comes down to your requirements  But SQL stored procs will no go away any time soon

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I think the pro LINQ argument seems to be coming from people who don t have a history with database development  in general    Especially if using a product like VS DB Pro or Team Suite  many of the arguments made here do not apply  for instance   Harder to maintain and Test  VS provides full syntax checking  style checking  referential and constraint checking and more  It also provide full unit testing capabilities and refactoring tools   LINQ makes true unit testing impossible as  in my mind  it fails the ACID test   Debugging is easier in LINQ  Why  VS allows full step-in from managed code and regular debugging of SPs   Compiled into a single DLL rather than deployment scripts  Once again  VS comes to the rescue where it can build and deploy full databases or make data-safe incremental changes   Don t have to learn TSQL with LINQ  No you don t  but you have to learn LINQ - where s the benefit      I really don t see this as being a benefit  Being able to change something in isolation might sound good in theory  but just because the changes fulfil a contract doesn t mean it s returning the correct results  To be able to determine what the correct results are you need context and you get that context from the calling code    Um  loosely coupled apps are the ultimate goal of all good programmers as they really do increase flexibility  Being able to change things in isolation is fantastic  and it is your unit tests that will ensure it is still returning appropriate results   Before you all get upset  I think LINQ has its place and has a grand future  But for complex  data-intensive applications I do not think it is ready to take the place of stored procedures  This was a view I had echoed by an MVP at TechEd this year  they will remain nameless    EDIT  The LINQ to SQL Stored Procedure side of things is something I still need to read more on - depending on what I find I may alter my above diatribe

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For simple CRUD operations with a single data access point  I would say go for LINQ if you feel comfortable with the syntax  For more complicated logic I think sprocs are more efficiant performance-wise if you are good at T-SQL and its more advanced operations  You also have the help from Tuning Advisor  SQL Server Profiler  debugging your queries from SSMS etc

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A DBA has no freedom to make changes   to the data model without forcing you   to change your compiled code  With   stored procedures  you can hide these   sorts of changes to an extent  since   the parameter list and results set s    returned from a procedure represent   its contract  and the innards can be   changed around  just so long as that   contract is still met    I really don t see this as being a benefit  Being able to change something in isolation might sound good in theory  but just because the changes fulfil a contract doesn t mean it s returning the correct results  To be able to determine what the correct results are you need context and you get that context from the calling code

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For basic data retrieval I would be going for Linq without hesitation   Since moving to Linq I ve found the following advantages    Debugging my DAL has never been easier  Compile time safety when your schema changes is priceless  Deployment is easier because everything is compiled into DLL s  No more managing deployment scripts  Because Linq can support querying anything that implements the IQueryable interface  you will be able to use the same syntax to query XML  Objects and any other datasource without having to learn a new syntax

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I am generally a proponent of putting everything in stored procedures  for all of the reasons DBAs have been harping on for years   In the case of Linq  it is true that there will be no performance difference with simple CRUD queries   But keep a few things in mind when making this decision  using any ORM couples you tightly to your data model   A DBA has no freedom to make changes to the data model without forcing you to change your compiled code   With stored procedures  you can hide these sorts of changes to an extent  since the parameter list and results set s  returned from a procedure represent its contract  and the innards can be changed around  just so long as that contract is still met   And also  if Linq is used for more complex queries  tuning the database becomes a much more difficult task   When a stored procedure is running slow  the DBA can totally focus on the code in isolation  and has lots of options  just so that contract is still satisfied when he she is done   I have seen many  many cases where serious problems in an application were addressed by changes to the schema and code in stored procedures without any change to deployed  compiled code   Perhaps a hybird approach would be nice with Linq   Linq can  of course  be used to call stored procedures

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Also  there is the issue of possible 2 0 rollback  Trust me it has happened to me a couple of times so I am sure it has happened to others   I also agree that abstraction is the best  Along with the fact  the original purpose of an ORM is to make RDBMS match up nicely to the OO concepts  However  if everything worked fine before LINQ by having to deviate a bit from OO concepts then screw  em  Concepts and reality don t always fit well together  There is no room for militant zealots in IT

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The outcome can be summarized as   LinqToSql for small sites  and prototypes  It really saves time for Prototyping   Sps   Universal  I can fine tune my queries and always check ActualExecutionPlan   EstimatedExecutionPlan

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I m assuming you mean Linq To Sql  For any CRUD command it s easy to profile the performance of a stored procedure vs  any technology  In this case any difference between the two will be negligible  Try profiling for a 5  simple types  field object over 100 000 select queries to find out if there s a real difference   On the other hand the real deal-breaker will be the question on whether you feel comfortable putting your business logic on your database or not  which is an argument against stored procedures

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All these answers leaning towards LINQ are mainly talking about EASE of DEVELOPMENT which is more or less connected to poor quality of coding or laziness in coding  I am like that only    Some advantages or Linq  I read here as   easy to test  easy to debug etc  but these are no where connected to Final output or end user  This is always going cause the trouble the end user on performance  Whats the point loading many things in memory and then applying filters on in using LINQ    Again TypeSafety  is caution that  we are careful to avoid wrong typecasting  which again poor quality we are trying to improve by using linq  Even in that case  if anything in database changes  e g  size of String column  then linq needs to be re-compiled and would not be typesafe without that    I tried   Although  we found is good  sweet  interesting etc while working with LINQ  it has shear disadvantage of making developer lazy    and it is proved 1000 times that it is bad  may be worst  on performance compared to Stored Procs   Stop being lazy  I am trying hard

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LINQ will bloat the procedure cache  If an application is using LINQ to SQL and the queries involve the use of strings that can be highly variable in length  the SQL Server procedure cache will become bloated with one version of the query for every possible string length  For example  consider the following very simple queries created against the Person AddressTypes table in the AdventureWorks2008 database   var p        from n in x AddressTypes      where n Name     Billing       select n   var p        from n in x AddressTypes      where n Name     Main Office       select n    If both of these queries are run  we will see two entries in the SQL Server procedure cache  One bound with an NVARCHAR 7   and the other with an NVARCHAR 11   Now imagine if there were hundreds or thousands of different input strings  all with different lengths  The procedure cache would become unnecessarily filled with all sorts of different plans for the exact same query    More here  https   connect microsoft com VisualStudio feedback ViewFeedback aspx FeedbackID 363290

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Some advantages of LINQ over sprocs    Type safety  I think we all understand this  Abstraction  This is especially true with LINQ-to-Entities   This abstraction also allows the framework to add additional improvements that you can easily take advantage of   PLINQ is an example of adding multi-threading support to LINQ   Code changes are minimal to add this support   It would be MUCH harder to do this data access code that simply calls sprocs  Debugging support  I can use any  NET debugger to debug the queries   With sprocs  you cannot easily debug the SQL and that experience is largely tied to your database vendor  MS SQL Server provides a query analyzer  but often that isn t enough   Vendor agnostic  LINQ works with lots of databases and the number of supported databases will only increase   Sprocs are not always portable between databases  either because of varying syntax or feature support  if the database supports sprocs at all   Deployment  Others have mentioned this already  but it s easier to deploy a single assembly than to deploy a set of sprocs   This also ties in with  4  Easier  You don t have to learn T-SQL to do data access  nor do you have to learn the data access API  e g  ADO NET  necessary for calling the sprocs   This is related to  3 and  4    Some disadvantages of LINQ vs sprocs    Network traffic  sprocs need only serialize sproc-name and argument data over the wire while LINQ sends the entire query   This can get really bad if the queries are very complex   However  LINQ s abstraction allows Microsoft to improve this over time  Less flexible  Sprocs can take full advantage of a database s featureset   LINQ tends to be more generic in it s support   This is common in any kind of language abstraction  e g  C  vs assembler   Recompiling  If you need to make changes to the way you do data access  you need to recompile  version  and redeploy your assembly   Sprocs can sometimes allow a DBA to tune the data access routine without a need to redeploy anything    Security and manageability are something that people argue about too    Security  For example  you can protect your sensitive data by restricting access to the tables directly  and put ACLs on the sprocs   With LINQ  however  you can still restrict direct access  to tables and instead put ACLs on updatable table views to achieve a similar end  assuming your database supports updatable views     Manageability  Using views also gives you the advantage of shielding your application non-breaking from schema changes  like table normalization    You can update the view without requiring your data access code to change    I used to be a big sproc guy  but I m starting to lean towards LINQ as a better alternative in general   If there are some areas where sprocs are clearly better  then I ll probably still write a sproc but access it using LINQ

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Stored procedure makes testing easier and you can change the query without touching the application code  Also with linq  getting a data does not mean its the right data  And testing the correctness of the data means running the application but with stored procedure it s easy to test without touching the application

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LINQ doesn t prohibit the use of stored procedures  I ve used mixed mode with LINQ-SQL and LINQ-storedproc  Personally  I m glad I don t have to write the stored procs    pwet-tu

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The best code is no code  and with stored procedures you have to write at least some code in the database and code in the application to call it   whereas with LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entities  you don t have to write any additional code beyond any other LINQ query aside from instantiating a context object

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According to gurus  I define LINQ as motorcycle and SP as car  If you want to go for a short trip and only have small passengers in this case 2   go gracefully with LINQ  But if you want to go for a journey and have large band  i think you should choose SP   As a conclusion  choosing between motorcycle or car is depend on your route  business   length  time   and passengers  data    Hope it helps  I may be wrong   D

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