I had been anticipating the release of Web Matrix 2.0, but was
pretty disappointed with the blatant attempts to lock users into
SQL Server and ACCESS (of course I know that manual imports are
possible re. my .net provider for non Microsoft databases, but
that's beside the point). From the feature list:
Easy Data UI Generation. Web Matrix makes
it easy to create data bound pages without writing code. Drop
SQL/MSDE or Access tables on your page to create data-bound grids,
or start with Data Page templates for reports or Master/Detail
pages. Code builders help you generate code to select, insert,
update and delete SQL/MSDE or Access data.
[via WebLogs @ ASP.NET]
It only makes it easy for two databases which are both
Microsoft owned? What really baffles me is why they don't use
ADO.NET, by the way this istheir own data abstraction
technology. The same approach has also been applied to InfoPath and
this is certainly a disturbing trend for unsuspecting end-users,
developers, systems architects, and decision makers. Before you
know it you lose your database choices.
Could this be an oversight on the part of Microsoft? I don't
think so somehow, we are taking a very interesting journey here
from database independence to database specificity (
ODBC->OLEDB-ADO.NET-[SQL Server|Acces] ), all in a quest to
covertly reduce choices (I think I've seen this movie before! And I
might have to rewrite the script).