C#: What Else Do You Use Besides DataSet

Question

I've found myself increasingly unsatisfied with the DataSet/DataTable/DataRow paradigm in .Net, mostly because it's often a couple of steps more complicated than what I really want to do. In cases where I'm binding to controls, DataSets are fine. But in other cases, there seems to be a fair amount of mental overhead.

I've played a bit with SqlDataReader, and that seems to be good for simple jaunts through a select, but I feel like there may be some other models lurking in .Net that are useful to learn more about. I feel like all of the help I find on this just uses DataSet by default. Maybe that and DataReader really are the best options.

I'm not looking for a best/worst breakdown, just curious what my options are and what experiences you've had with them. Thanks!

-Eric Sipple

Answer 1

Since .NET 3.5 came out, I've exclusively used LINQ. It's really that good; I don't see any reason to use any of those old crutches any more.

As great as LINQ is, though, I think any ORM system would allow you to do away with that dreck.

Answer 2

We've moved away from datasets and built our own ORM objects loosely based on CSLA. You can get the same job done with either a DataSet or LINQ or ORM but re-using it is (we've found) a lot easier. 'Less code make more happy'.