[ANN]Innovation to ADO.NET - Object Access Services for .NET

[Carlos Santana]

New Software Matisse Software Inc. provides its native ADO.NET Data
provider for Matisse 6.0, the Database for .NET. Matisse Software has pushed
the envelope of Microsoft ADO.NET architecture and extended it into a
powerful Object Access Services component for .NET. Unlike the standard
ADO.NET data provider, which returns data in a table format to integrate
seamlessly with relational products, Matisse has extended the ADO.NET
architecture to return data in an object format. http://www.matisse.com/

 

[Noah Coad [MVP & MCP]]

Isn't this what VS.NET does for you using ADO.NET by creating an XML data
spec (.xsd) file? Everything becomes the correct, strongly typed objects.
How is this different?

 

[Rob Tillie]

Noah, this is interesting! could you give me a pointer in the msdn docs for
this?

Greetz,
-- Rob.

 

[Noah Coad [MVP & MCP]]

You can just "Add a New Item" to your project, select a "DataSet", then go
from there. In the designer, press F1 for help & info. You can also view
my tutorial with some info on DevHood at:
http://www.devhood.com/tutorials/tutorial_details.aspx?tutorial_id=633

-Noah

 

[Jane Tupela]

How do you manage the following cases using an XML data spec?
1) many to many relationship
2) recursive reference like trees
3) class hierarchy

 

[Noah Coad [MVP & MCP]]

These answers are in reference to using VS.NET's Data Set designer.

1. Many to many is handled like it would be in most other database
applications (like Access). Just make an intermediate table containing
references to the keys from two other tables.

2. Recursive references are simple. Just create a self-refernce. Have
another field in the table point to contain the table's primary ID. For
example: 'Contacts' table has primary ID 'ContactID' In the sample table,
have a number field called 'ParentContactID' and make a reference to
'ContactID'.

3. Class hierarchy is created automatically through normal table relations.

The easiest was to see all this is to create the structure in an Access
Database, then drag & drop the tables into the Data Set designer from the
'Server Explorer'. To create relationships, drag a field from one table to
another.

-Noah Coad
Microsoft MVP & MCP

 

[Jane Tupela]

Thank you for your quick response.
But my questions are regarding the way how these cases are well mapped
from tables to objects in .NET.
For these case, it seems that Matisse ADO.NET does a better job.

 

[Chad Myers]

Thank you for your quick response.
But my questions are regarding the way how these cases are well mapped
from tables to objects in .NET.
For these case, it seems that Matisse ADO.NET does a better job.

You can use Server Explorer to connect to your SQL Server and
drag the tables onto your schema and set up the relationships
to match the SQL Server (there might be a way to drag in the
FK's too, but I haven't looked that hard).

Once you have DataSet, you can use a SqlDataAdapter to fill in
dataset. It'll write all the queries for you, etc.

The only problem I have with strong-typed datasets and
data mapper utilities like the one mentioned in this announcement,
is that any time there's a change or a complex relationship
or you just want to make a small, quick query to the DB,
these tools break down or make it too cumbersome to do
simple DB access.

I have yet to find any good DB access strategy for .NET.

I'm convinced that Databasese are the bane of the OO
developer and that they should just go away. There has
to be some way to just say "save this object" or
"get this object" and "get all these objects with this
criteria" and some magical utility/library will be
able to persist/retrieve your object to just about
any medium (DB, XML, Access, etc) with a few
limitations, but not much.

-c