What is the difference between ADO and ADO.NET?
People like to share files, but what will the future bring?
ADO uses Recordsets and cursors to access and modify data. Because of its inherent
design, Recordset can impact performance on the server side by tying up valuable
resources. In addition, COM marshalling - an expensive data conversion process -
is needed to transmit a Recordset. ADO.NET addresses three important needs that
ADO doesn't address:
1. Providing a comprehensive disconnected data-access model, which is crucial
to the Web environment 2. Providing tight integration with XML, and 3. Providing
seamless integration with the .NET Framework (e.g., compatibility with the base
class library's type system). From an ADO.NET implementation perspective, the Recordset
object in ADO is eliminated in the .NET architecture. In its place, ADO.NET has
several dedicated objects led by the DataSet object and including the DataAdapter,
and DataReader objects to perform specific tasks. In addition, ADO.NET DataSets
operate in disconnected state whereas the ADO RecordSet objects operated in a fully
connected state.