What are the advantages of using POCOs over DataTables?

Question

In a data access layer, that queries a database and returns an enumerable object of results, what are the advantages of returning say a list of Dog objects with properties Name, Age, etc, instead of a DataTable that has columns like "Name", "Age", etc ?

Answer 1

A few:

• Type safety
• Serialisation not just to XML but JSON, binary ...
• Readability
• More light-weight
• Ability to add behaviours
• Ability to define DataAnnotation and validation logic
• Ability to use ORMs