Fluent and Query Expression — Is there any benefit(s) of one over other?

Question

LINQ is one of the greatest improvements to .NET since generics and it saves me tons of time, and lines of code. However, the fluent syntax seems to come much more natural

Answer 1

In VB.NET i very much prefer query syntax.

I hate to repeat the ugly Function-keyword:

Dim fullNames = { "Anne Williams", "John Fred Smith", "Sue Green" };
Dim query =
     fullNames.SelectMany(Function(fName) fName.Split().
     Select(Function(Name) New With {Name, fName})).
     OrderBy(Function(x) x.fName).
     ThenBy(Function(x) x.Name).
     Select(Function(x) x.Name & " came from " & x.fName)

This neat query is much more readable and maintainable in my opinion:

query = From fullName In fullNames
        From name In fullName.Split()
        Order By fullName, name
        Select name & " came from " & fullName

VB.NET's query syntax is also more powerful and less verbose than in C#: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6515130/284240

For example this LINQ to DataSet(Objects) query

VB.NET:

Dim first10Rows = From r In dataTable1 Take 10

C#:

var first10Rows = (from r in dataTable1.AsEnumerable() 
                   select r)
                   .Take(10);