Max or Default?

Since DefaultIfEmpty isn't implemented in LINQ to SQL, I did a search on the error it returned and found a fascinating article that deals with null sets in aggregate functions. To summarize what I found, you can get around this limitation by casting to a nullable within your select. My VB is a little rusty, but I think it'd go something like this:

Dim x = (From y In context.MyTable _
         Where y.MyField = value _
         Select CType(y.MyCounter, Integer?)).Max

Or in C#:

var x = (from y in context.MyTable
         where y.MyField == value
         select (int?)y.MyCounter).Max();

I just had a similar problem, but I was using LINQ extension methods on a list rather than query syntax. The casting to a Nullable trick works there as well:

int max = list.Max(i => (int?)i.MyCounter) ?? 0;

Sounds like a case for DefaultIfEmpty (untested code follows):

Dim x = (From y In context.MyTable _
         Where y.MyField = value _
         Select y.MyCounter).DefaultIfEmpty.Max