History of Data Access

  • Thread starter Thread starter SwatSoftwareDev
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SwatSoftwareDev

Hi,

I'm a novice programmer. When reading stuff on ADO.Net I often face terms
like OLE DB, ODBC. Is there anyone who knows the web links that can provide
me the concepts like these (ODBC,OLE DB and other concepts related to Data
Access) that can be understood easily by a novice like me. If anyone, please
give me those links.
Thanks in advance,

Regards,
Swat
 
Swat.

Well in context of ADO.NET, you don't need to know these terms in great
depth anyway, so here is a good explanation which may be sufficient for your
needs (atleast as far as ADO.NET goes).

ADO.NET is not the first data access technology on the MS platform. Before
this there was ADO classic, ODBC, OLE DB etc. They had their disadvantages
and that is why ADO.NET came into the picture.

So basically in that sense, they are older alternatives to ADO.NET. Not only
that, they were around before ADO.NET, so they were typically used with
older languages such as VB6/C++ etc. (Well, back when you didn't have .NET).
There are other differences too, but here is the biggest difference - their
architecture when compared with ADO.NET. ADO.NET has built a provider model
i.e. seperate implementation per-data-source. So SQL Server has a different
implementation than Oracle does. OLE DB and ODBC try and abstract this out
for you. They try to unify a common data access paradigm - which was not a
good idea in the long run, and therefore ADO.NET was born.

Finally, ADO.NET will let you access a OLEDB or ODBC data source using the
OleDb provider and ODBC provider.

- Sahil Malik [MVP]
ADO.NET 2.0 book -
http://codebetter.com/blogs/sahil.malik/archive/2005/05/13/63199.aspx
__________________________________________________________
 
SwatSoftwareDev said:
Hi,

I'm a novice programmer. When reading stuff on ADO.Net I often face
terms like OLE DB, ODBC. Is there anyone who knows the web links that
can provide me the concepts like these (ODBC,OLE DB and other
concepts related to Data Access) that can be understood easily by a
novice like me. If anyone, please give me those links.
Click to expand...

ODBC and OleDb are older techniques which are on their way out, when
it is for managed code and .NET.

ODBC and OleDb are 2 techniques which are used side by side: some say
ODBC is faster because the raw ODBC drivers for for example SqlServer
are faster than the OleDb drivers. ODBC and OleDb offer different
interfaces to the drivers they use to connect and work with a database
system, both serve the purpose to offer a somewhat uniform API to
access any RDBMS which has an ODBC or OleDb driver.

FB

--
 
Swat,
haha ;) For a minute I thought you would point him to www.google.com
;) :P
Click to expand...
I seldom do this, mainly only for JavaScript's and even than give the
complete link to that.

There is such a lot of trash on Internet that a newbie can be brought in the
wrong direction.

Wikipedia gives especially in the historical background of computer
terminologies a lot of information. (As well as synonyms, have a look by
instance at AJAX for that.)

Ajax is by instance as well a name for a Dutch Football/Soccer club. In
Holland famous for its style of playing. It lost last night from another
club mainly because the field was completely covered with snow. In that it
can be seen as a parallel situations where Ajax the hero from the Ilias was
in.

:-)

I could not resist to write the last paragraph. It is for probably the most
people completely not to understand.

Cor
 
I do a historical (sometimes somewhat hysterical and at other times
heretical) overview of how we got here (data access-wise) in my books. The
online sources are fine for the individual terms but sometimes you need some
fabric to stitch together the facts.

--
____________________________________
William (Bill) Vaughn
Author, Mentor, Consultant
Microsoft MVP
INETA Speaker
www.betav.com/blog/billva
www.betav.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that others can benefit.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
__________________________________
 
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