Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Bible

Chapter 32. Programming with ADO.NET 3.5

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding ADO and ADO.NET 3.5

• Visual Studio 2008 usability features for ADO.NET 3.5

• Building applications with ADO.NET 3.5

Unless data can be moved in and out of the database, there is no need for the database, the database administrator, or the database developer. In this chapter, the focus moves away from the database and into the application layer to examine one of the most important and useful SQL Server data access technology genealogies: the ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) family. The newest member, ADO.NET 3.5, is a suite of managed technologies capable of interacting with many relational database management systems (RDBMSs). Of course, SQL Server 2008 is a close relative to ADO.NET 3.5 in the family of Microsoft technologies. It is reasonable—and correct—to expect that they share a special relationship. As you will see, the underlying interface between ADO.NET application code and SQL Server is optimized.

This chapter covers ADO and ADO.NET, with special attention given to the new concepts and features introduced in ADO.NET version 3.5. The first new bit of information to learn is that the technologies are not mutually exclusive. Both ADO and ADO.NET are available to the Visual Studio 2008 programmer. Both have a place in the programmer's toolkit, and it will prove useful to know how ADO and ADO.NET technologies differ. This chapter compares and contrasts ADO and ADO.NET as an aid in making good development decisions. It ...