Using a Dataset in ASP.Net 2.0

[Denaes]

Every time I think I figure out how to make a dataset really viable (over just datareaders and functions calling SP's) I think it through further and it seems like they're too much overhead for how little functionality they give you (at least in comparison to the 'sets in WinForms).

 

Doing a normal declaration, your dataset won't be there for a postback (it'll be on the old pages instance and not the new pages instance) and if you're not going to keep data around, you might as well just hose it out. Datasets are more for being a temporary cache of data.

 

You could serialize the data and send it back & forth, but that seems less efficient than just requerrying it.

 

You could declare the dataset as Shared, but it seems that all users using the same page will be using the dataset, which may not be what you want or expect.

 

It looks like I'll be using a lot of AJAX by way of Infragistics controls and maybe theres a solution in there with partial loading pages and querrying the database without postbacks.

 

But am I missing something obvious? Am I just expecting too much of datasets in WebForms because of how I use them in WinForms?