Web Development

Hi,

Your arguement against the readability of untyped datasets is not infact the case, as your while loop which indexes the columns by the location can be replaced by

While (rdr.Read())
Console.Write("Name: ")
Console.Write(rdr.Item("FirstName"))
Console.WriteLine(rdr.Item("LastName"))
End While

That way you have the advantage of an untyped dataset (and there are advantages) and it is still quite obvious which columns you are using.

And if performance is an issue you can do this.

Dim firstNameColumn As Integer = rdr.GetOrdinal("FirstName")
Dim lastNameColumn As Integer = rdr.GetOrdinal("LastName")

While (rdr.Read())
Console.Write("Name: ")
Console.Write(rdr.GetValue(firstNameColumn))
Console.WriteLine(rdr.GetValue(lastNameColumn))
End While

I agree that there are advantages and disadvantages to untyped and typed dataset, but I believe the important ones have nothing to do with readability and ease of coding using the IDE.

Chris