ADO.NET and System.Xml Version 2.0
One of the fundamental design goals of ADO.NET and the classes from the System.Xml namespaces is to give the developer complete control over how data is accessed and used. In designing ADO.NET, Microsoft concentrated on providing the right core building blocks by factoring functionality into discrete, optimized objects, with the idea that classes could be built in later versions that use these building blocks to make common tasks easier.
When Microsoft first introduced version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, many developers familiar with ADO initially found this new factoring of classes for accessing and working with data unfamiliar. The one-size-fits-all Recordset object that formed the core of ADO and previous data access technologies was replaced with a series of new objects optimized for specific scenarios, such as the DataReader and DataSet. Meanwhile, a raft of new classes was added to the Framework for working with Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents and XML-formatted data. While this factoring provides added flexibility and control, many common tasks require understanding and tying together multiple independent objects, as opposed to the simplicity of the single Recordset object in ADO.
Now, in version 2.0 of the Framework, we get some exciting new additions to the ADO.NET and XML classes that build on the original version 1.0 classes, adding ease of use for common scenarios as well as introducing a host of new features. There is also support for the new features in the forthcoming version of SQL Server (code-named "Yukon") and the introduction of many core data access techniques that developers have been asking for since version 1.0.
This book covers all these new features. However, bear in mind that, as we described in the introduction to the book, the version of the Framework being released at the time of writing (late 2003) is a Technology Preview edition rather than a final release.
So, in this first chapter, we will:
Overview the version 2.0 Technology Preview release Summarize the new data management features in version 2.0 Look at the reasons for the growing importance of XML Summarize how the techniques for binding to data in ASP.NET are changing Provide a roadmap for the remainder of the book
We start with an overview of the Technology Preview release of version 2.0 of the .NET Framework. Bear in mind that this book is about what's new in version 2.0 of the .NET Framework, so we'll be assuming that you are familiar in general with the version 1.0 data access techniques and classes.
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