Datasheet

Chapter 1
30
Having made it this far, you can be sure that the MSDE database is ready for action, and with that our
work in this chapter is done. It's been quite a fast ride, but we've covered a lot of ground in the hope
that it will look familiar when you see it again in the chapters ahead. That slower, more careful journey
begins in the next chapter.
Summary
In this chapter, we have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of creating data-driven sites,
showing that although they can provide a wealth of functionality, there are problems associated with
their creation. This was followed by an introduction to data sources, and how they are handled using
ADO.NET. The architecture of an application that involves data access was then covered, showing why
the separation of data and presentation can provide many benefits to developers. Finally, details about
MSDE – the database server we'll use in examples throughout this book – were given, and the product
was installed.
Now that the background to the creation of data-driven web sites in .NET has been dealt with, we can
move on to finding out the details of each of the technologies, and putting them to use. In the next
chapter, we'll look at some of the theory involved in creating databases, along with a quick introduction
to the SQL language, and a tour of the Northwind database. In Chapter 3, our brief description of
connecting to databases will be expanded to cover the finer points, along with other topics such as the
storing of connection strings. Following this, Chapters 4 and 5 are concerned with data readers and
datasets, with Chapters 6 and 7 covering the adding, modification, and deletion of records. The rest of
the book then makes use of this knowledge of ADO.NET, discussing the creation of components,
applications, and stored procedures, and looking at performance issues. We finish with a case study,
which pulls all this knowledge together in a practical application.