Chapter One
Reading From Databases

So far in this book you've learnt a lot about programming, and seen those techniques in use in a variety of Web pages. Now it's time to turn our attention to one of the most important topics of building Web sites data. Whatever the type of site you aim to build, data plays an important part. From a personal site (perhaps a vacation diary or a photo album), to a corporate e commerce site, data is key.
There are many ways in which data can be stored, but most sites will probably use a database. So in this chapter we're going to look at data stored in databases, and show how easily it can be used on Web pages. For this we are going to use ADO.NET, which is the data access technology that comes as part of the .NET Framework.
If the thought of databases sounds complex and scary, don't worry. We're going to show you just how easy this can be. In particular, we'll be looking at:
Basi ... read full excerpt from Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 with VB.NET 2003 ebook