ADO and ADO.NET

Ok, maybe I am more lost than I realized.
(I am a "new user" of SQL Server 2000 and posted this question in the
"newusers" group, then thought that perhaps I should have posted it to
"programming" instead. So, this is a delayed cross-post, sorry if you had
to see it twice.)
I have the documentation from the Platform SDK, and I started to read about
ADO. The first hits that I got on searching on ADO.NET were warnings not to
mix and match ADO and the .NET framework. Assuming that I don't actually
care what object model or set of methods I use, I just want to write code
that will work, what should I be looking at? The documentation on my screen
talks about ADO 2.8 and I think this is from an MDAC 2.8 SDK that I
installed. The topic "ADO history" doesn't even mention ADO.NET so I am
thinking I am not in the right place yet ... :)
Since I don't really care what technology I use so long as I can produce
results, should I read about ADO 2.8 or would I be a lot more productive to
find my documentation on ADO.NET and stay away from ADO 2.8?
I just found my documentation for the .NET Framework 1.1 SDK, so now I can
read about the "Overview of ADO.NET" and deeper stuff.
Suggestions? Use ADO.NET and ignore ADO 2.8, or the other way around? I
really don't care what I use, I just need to write some code that can read
and write to SQL Server 2000. My programming language will be VB.NET and my
development environment will be Microsoft Visual Studio 2003, and I'm coding
just for myself, and I have lots of programming experience but almost none
in VB or databases, and exactly zero in ADO or ADO.NET.
Thanks! Feel free to point out how clueless I am, this idea is sinking in
... :)
TadHi
If you are using .NET, forget about ADO 2.x and only read ADO.NET informatio
n.
ADO.NET is the new way of doing things.
Regards
Mike
"Tad Marshall" wrote:

> Ok, maybe I am more lost than I realized.
> (I am a "new user" of SQL Server 2000 and posted this question in the
> "newusers" group, then thought that perhaps I should have posted it to
> "programming" instead. So, this is a delayed cross-post, sorry if you had
> to see it twice.)
> I have the documentation from the Platform SDK, and I started to read abou
t
> ADO. The first hits that I got on searching on ADO.NET were warnings not
to
> mix and match ADO and the .NET framework. Assuming that I don't actually
> care what object model or set of methods I use, I just want to write code
> that will work, what should I be looking at? The documentation on my scre
en
> talks about ADO 2.8 and I think this is from an MDAC 2.8 SDK that I
> installed. The topic "ADO history" doesn't even mention ADO.NET so I am
> thinking I am not in the right place yet ... :)
> Since I don't really care what technology I use so long as I can produce
> results, should I read about ADO 2.8 or would I be a lot more productive t
o
> find my documentation on ADO.NET and stay away from ADO 2.8?
> I just found my documentation for the .NET Framework 1.1 SDK, so now I can
> read about the "Overview of ADO.NET" and deeper stuff.
> Suggestions? Use ADO.NET and ignore ADO 2.8, or the other way around? I
> really don't care what I use, I just need to write some code that can read
> and write to SQL Server 2000. My programming language will be VB.NET and
my
> development environment will be Microsoft Visual Studio 2003, and I'm codi
ng
> just for myself, and I have lots of programming experience but almost none
> in VB or databases, and exactly zero in ADO or ADO.NET.
> Thanks! Feel free to point out how clueless I am, this idea is sinking in
> ... :)
> Tad
>
>
>|||Thanks, Mike. I will ignore ADO 2.8 and focus on ADO.NET. There is no
point in my getting up to speed on anything that is basically obsolete
already.
What I am doing is really simple in some ways, and I would not be pushing
either ADO or ADO.NET to their limits in any way, but learning one set of
API/method calls is less work than learning two, and picking the one with
the longer shelf life just makes sense.
Thanks for your advice!
Tad
"Mike Epprecht (SQL MVP)" <mike@.epprecht.net> wrote in message
news:047C22C3-1AE6-4817-A395-4ED74B98517B@.microsoft.com...
> Hi
> If you are using .NET, forget about ADO 2.x and only read ADO.NET
> information.
> ADO.NET is the new way of doing things.
> Regards
> Mike
> "Tad Marshall" wrote:
>|||Here's a short list of some topics in MSDN Library to help you look into
ADO.NET on SQL Server.
SqlClient namespace (contains SqlConnection, SqlDataAdapter, SqlCommand,
SqlDataReader, etc.)
DataSets
DataGrid
Data Binding
This is just a short list, but enough to create a fully-functional ADO.NET
app in VB.NET.
"Tad Marshall" <tad@.tadmarshall.com> wrote in message
news:e9WHprSOFHA.3144@.tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Thanks, Mike. I will ignore ADO 2.8 and focus on ADO.NET. There is no
> point in my getting up to speed on anything that is basically obsolete
> already.
> What I am doing is really simple in some ways, and I would not be pushing
> either ADO or ADO.NET to their limits in any way, but learning one set of
> API/method calls is less work than learning two, and picking the one with
> the longer shelf life just makes sense.
> Thanks for your advice!
> Tad
> "Mike Epprecht (SQL MVP)" <mike@.epprecht.net> wrote in message
> news:047C22C3-1AE6-4817-A395-4ED74B98517B@.microsoft.com...
>|||Thank you Michael! This is perfect for starting me on my reading of the
docs, reading the right stuff will save me a lot of time!
My needs are not very complicated, so this will probably get me all the way
to working code, thanks!
Tad
"Michael C#" <howsa@.boutdat.com> wrote in message
news:eWy5Q8SOFHA.3848@.TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
> Here's a short list of some topics in MSDN Library to help you look into
> ADO.NET on SQL Server.
> SqlClient namespace (contains SqlConnection, SqlDataAdapter, SqlCommand,
> SqlDataReader, etc.)
> DataSets
> DataGrid
> Data Binding
> This is just a short list, but enough to create a fully-functional ADO.NET
> app in VB.NET.|||Tad,
Check this out, this is the data access application block for .Net, this
will be very usefull to you if you are just beginning ADO.NET and wanting to
understand best practices.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...aab.
asp
"Tad Marshall" wrote:

> Ok, maybe I am more lost than I realized.
> (I am a "new user" of SQL Server 2000 and posted this question in the
> "newusers" group, then thought that perhaps I should have posted it to
> "programming" instead. So, this is a delayed cross-post, sorry if you had
> to see it twice.)
> I have the documentation from the Platform SDK, and I started to read abou
t
> ADO. The first hits that I got on searching on ADO.NET were warnings not
to
> mix and match ADO and the .NET framework. Assuming that I don't actually
> care what object model or set of methods I use, I just want to write code
> that will work, what should I be looking at? The documentation on my scre
en
> talks about ADO 2.8 and I think this is from an MDAC 2.8 SDK that I
> installed. The topic "ADO history" doesn't even mention ADO.NET so I am
> thinking I am not in the right place yet ... :)
> Since I don't really care what technology I use so long as I can produce
> results, should I read about ADO 2.8 or would I be a lot more productive t
o
> find my documentation on ADO.NET and stay away from ADO 2.8?
> I just found my documentation for the .NET Framework 1.1 SDK, so now I can
> read about the "Overview of ADO.NET" and deeper stuff.
> Suggestions? Use ADO.NET and ignore ADO 2.8, or the other way around? I
> really don't care what I use, I just need to write some code that can read
> and write to SQL Server 2000. My programming language will be VB.NET and
my
> development environment will be Microsoft Visual Studio 2003, and I'm codi
ng
> just for myself, and I have lots of programming experience but almost none
> in VB or databases, and exactly zero in ADO or ADO.NET.
> Thanks! Feel free to point out how clueless I am, this idea is sinking in
> ... :)
> Tad
>
>
>|||Thanks for the pointer, this looks like great stuff!
"Alien2_51" <dan.billow.remove@.monacocoach.removeme.com> wrote in message
news:A6CB1895-2142-4AFB-90D6-1F58E7CE0089@.microsoft.com...
> Tad,
> Check this out, this is the data access application block for .Net, this
> will be very usefull to you if you are just beginning ADO.NET and wanting
> to
> understand best practices.
> [url]http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/daab.asp[/u
rl]|||I downloaded and installed the Application Block and will get going on
reading about it.
Is there a quick summary that you can give me of what I have here? It looks
like a big set of code and documentation, but I am not even clear on what an
"Application Block" is ...
I'll start reading, perhaps this will be obvious to me in five minutes ...
thanks for the tip!
Tad
"Alien2_51" <dan.billow.remove@.monacocoach.removeme.com> wrote in message
news:A6CB1895-2142-4AFB-90D6-1F58E7CE0089@.microsoft.com...
> Tad,
> Check this out, this is the data access application block for .Net, this
> will be very usefull to you if you are just beginning ADO.NET and wanting
> to
> understand best practices.
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...aa
b.asp
> "Tad Marshall" wrote:
>|||"Tad Marshall" wrote:

> I downloaded and installed the Application Block and will get going on
> reading about it.
> Is there a quick summary that you can give me of what I have here? It loo
ks
> like a big set of code and documentation, but I am not even clear on what
an
> "Application Block" is ...
Application blocks are basically components that encapsulate common
enterprise application development tasks and best practices such as data
access, logging, exception management, caching and several other areas.
Travel one step up the tree from this link to find out about patterns and
practices which contain some important architectural concepts in application
development. If your just beginning this is a great place to start.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...hab.
asp

> I'll start reading, perhaps this will be obvious to me in five minutes ...
> thanks for the tip!
> Tad
> "Alien2_51" <dan.billow.remove@.monacocoach.removeme.com> wrote in message
> news:A6CB1895-2142-4AFB-90D6-1F58E7CE0089@.microsoft.com...
>
>|||No problem. Another nifty learning tool is the Data Form Wizard. If you
use VB.NET to create a Data Form using the wizard, you can look at the code
it generates to see how it does what it does. The code it generates is
somewhat generic and can be cleaned up a little, but it will give you a good
idea of how the different pieces interact with one another.
"Tad Marshall" <tad@.tadmarshall.com> wrote in message
news:OOck9CTOFHA.3788@.tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Thank you Michael! This is perfect for starting me on my reading of the
> docs, reading the right stuff will save me a lot of time!
> My needs are not very complicated, so this will probably get me all the
> way to working code, thanks!
> Tad
>