QueryExpression vs. FetchXml CRM2011

Question

We found out that Linq for CRM 2011 is horribly broken - it seems to have gotten in without any QA performed on it. An indicator as how badly broken the provider is a query

Answer 1

I've been asked specifically by a client to use the Query Expression model, so in order to make my life easier, I've resorted to adding a lot of extension methods to IOrganizationService. Examples Include:

public static List GetEntities(
    this IOrganizationService service, 
    params object[] columnNameAndValuePairs
) where T : Entity

which converts the params object[] and T entity type into a query expression, and automatically returns the results to an entity list. So it is used like so:

foreach(var c in service.GetEntities("lastname", "Doe", "firstname", "Smith"))
{
    ... 
}

I also use this one a lot too:

public static T GetFirstOrDefault(
    this IOrganizationService service,
    params object[] columnNameAndValuePairs
) where T : Entity

var c = service.GetFirstOrDefault("owner", id);

These type of extension methods make working with query expressions a lot easier, giving you a much more LINQ type style, without weird linq restriction traps that are easy to fall into.