I've not found that to be true - C# is a lot of fun to work with.
from a in b select a.x
select b.x from b
[a.x for a in b]
The reason it that it is not possible to provide code completion in the selector expression if the type of the list is not yet known. Hence in C# the list is written before the selector expression, so the editor helpfully can list all a's members when typing `select a.`
Another example is "Partial Classes" which is a curious language feature which makes it more smooth to work with UI-designer generated files, but which I don't think has any useful function outside of an IDE.
I don't think many other languages are designed with IDE support in mind in such a way. This makes it possible to provide a very smooth IDE experience.
Besides... when I write SQL I write it thus:
SELECT * FROM BLAH
Then refine to:
SELECT * FROM BLAH WHERE FOO
Before finally adding:
SELECT COL1, COL2 FROM BLAH WHERE FOO
Linq matches the way I construct SQL by putting it into the order I logically think of it:
FROM BLAH WHERE FOO SELECT COL1, COL2
This seem to me to be closer to SQL syntax.
I suspect that SQL was actually designed to match the notational order (but reversing the intent) they still got it wrong: to match the notation, it should be SELECT .. WHERE .. FROM.
a(b(c(x))) is "backwards" because the functions are evaluated in the opposite order than they are written. This is a flaw in math and in most programming languages! I suppose stack-based languages have it right, and the OO method chaining syntax in Linq and in e.g. JQuery has it right, since evaluation order is left-to-right.
How practical would that be nowadays?
How long should it take? And note, most of the time is spent writing the code (~4 minutes).
When working on a big project, if I want to just test out a piece of code, I actually find myself launching the project, pausing it, and using the "Immediate" window in Visual Studio as a REPL, even though it's inconvenient for the purpose.
And here's my comment to another comment on the blog post:
The question is not whether you've used C# extensively and think it is pragmatic, but whether you have used anything better (e.g. Common Lisp) and _still_ think it's as pragmatic you once thought it was. If you say that C# is more pragmatic than, say, using COBOL for an web application, then sure. But the author of this post is correct insofar as new C# features sound a lot better on paper than how they really stack up when wanting to express yourself in code.
Not to even mention that if you go outside of the OOP/procedural paradigm in C# and start coding using functional-style language constructs, C# gets pretty ugly pretty fast.
http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
And yes, I actually wish I had more time to spend learning Lisp and using it for web development as well. See my blog (http://ifelipe.net) for what it's worth---though it's on a bit of a hiatus.