Essential ADO.NET

8.1. What Are Your Choices?

In the days of OLE DB and ODBC, drivers and providers were implemented for a variety of reasons. Sets of data could be exposed through a common set of graphical user interface controls when a provider was implemented. Reporting programs, data exchange programs, and other data consuming products used the common API. The ADO Recordset and Remote Data Services were used as a de facto standard for data exchange, so some teams wrote providers only to produce ADO Recordsets. There was even the promise of “write-once, use with everything” generic data clients. Providers and drivers were implemented even if the data access method corresponded little or not at all with the API or object model. Examples of the latter include ...