Chapter 22. Introducing ADO.NET and DataSets

In This Chapter

Introducing ADO.NET Introducing DataSets

For many years .NET developers have written data-centric applications in only two ways: connected or disconnected modes. For the disconnected fashion, DataSets played an important role, and still today lots of developers build or maintain applications based on DataSets, and probably you are one of them. But times change and technology goes on. Different data platforms, such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ to SQL, have been introduced to the .NET world, and the classic approach is becoming obsolete. If you think of Silverlight applications, you cannot use DataSets. You instead use LINQ. Of course, there can be situations in which you can still take advantage of the old approach (such as the connected mode), and this is left to your strategy. Because of these considerations, the purpose of this chapter to provide a quick recap on connected mode and disconnected mode with DataSets. We instead focus deeper on what is new in data access with LINQ in next chapters. Basically, you get information that can put you on the right track for comparing and appreciating the power of LINQ.