Summary

This brief Visual Studio .NET example has shown you how easy it is to create applications in the .NET Framework and how tightly coupled SQL Server 2000 is as well. All data access is achievable via ADO.NET and the very robust DataSet representation. (The DataSet contains the DataTable, which contains DataRows and DataColumns.) Programmers are no longer at the mercy of the very restrictive recordset and can now write applications that span platforms via XML. Sams Teach Yourself ADO.NET in 24 Hours (Lefebvre/Bertucci) provides many more details about how to code using ADO.NET.

Remember, the .NET Framework is a multitiered platform that consists of developer tools, Web services, and a set of strongly typed programming languages that allow you to deploy applications for the Web or for the desktop in a single bound. Microsoft has positioned .NET to be a scalable architecture with many features such as optimistic concurrency, connection pooling, and XML interoperability. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 is at the heart of .NET and serves as the major data provider for this framework.