L
Larry Lard
In the old days (VB3 era), there was a thing called the Data Control,
and you could use it to databind controls on forms to datasources, and
so (as the marketing speak goes), 'create database applications without
writing a single line of code!!!'. Personally, and I know I wasn't
alone in this, I was always suspicious of this claim, because one
invariably ended up writing huge amounts of code attempting to get the
automagical thing to do what you wanted.
For this reason a lot of real world apps ended up 'rolling their own'
database access, and avoiding direct binding like the plague - get your
recordset on your own terms, populate the controls yourself, do cancels
and updates yourself, no worries.
Each successive new MS language version or data access tech has always
trumpeted the amazing new benefits of the latest data binding system
(usually with some blurb about not having to write any code), and .NET
and 2.0 are no exceptions. There seems now to be a huge amount of data
access stuff closely coupling ADO.NET and WinForms controls.
The question is, is now the time to start adopting it in the real
world? Or are we still better off doing it manually, where we can be
sure what's actually happening?
and you could use it to databind controls on forms to datasources, and
so (as the marketing speak goes), 'create database applications without
writing a single line of code!!!'. Personally, and I know I wasn't
alone in this, I was always suspicious of this claim, because one
invariably ended up writing huge amounts of code attempting to get the
automagical thing to do what you wanted.
For this reason a lot of real world apps ended up 'rolling their own'
database access, and avoiding direct binding like the plague - get your
recordset on your own terms, populate the controls yourself, do cancels
and updates yourself, no worries.
Each successive new MS language version or data access tech has always
trumpeted the amazing new benefits of the latest data binding system
(usually with some blurb about not having to write any code), and .NET
and 2.0 are no exceptions. There seems now to be a huge amount of data
access stuff closely coupling ADO.NET and WinForms controls.
The question is, is now the time to start adopting it in the real
world? Or are we still better off doing it manually, where we can be
sure what's actually happening?