Entity classes vs. datasets...

Here is quite a good article that talks about custom Entity Classes versus the use of DataSets etc. I personally like the use of Entity Classes that are totally independent of any databases, this way the object oriented approach is not influenced by the structure of an underlying database or data source. This provides cleaner code, although agreed it can result in more code, but for an enterprise scale solution I think this is a minor trade-off. I think DataSets can have their place, in simple applications where there isn't the same seperation required between the UI and the database - then binding the two is OK. And I absolutely do not advocate DataSets going across service boundaries, and therefore they should never find themselves into a Web Service - this is just bad. Anyway, read and enjoy!