OK, are you doing this in ASP.NET with VB.Net Code behind or a Visual Basic.Net application? From your post, I get the feeling that it is in ASP.NET (.."I thought I would the application in pure VB.NET" = my confusion..)
Saying that, here is a very good overview of ADO.NET LINK
The Dataset is a "snapshot" of the data in the database at that moment in time. The idea behind ADO.NET is not the maintain a constant connection to the DB (i.e. hogging resources and processor time), but rather to grab the set of data requested (i.e dataset).
Datasets are much like a recordset.
The changes from ASP (Classic) to ASP.NET is the implementation of true OOP (Object Oriented Programming). Abstraction....encapsulation, and instatiation.
Another very good site, that I recommend you read through : Excellent Overview (with code)
Hope this helps
Be sure to check out the tutorials as well.
I have programmed a web application using classic ASP and MSSQL, but our company is upgrading to ASP.NET and for my next project I thought I would the application in pure VB.NET.
However, I am struggling to get my application to talk correctly to the MSSQL tables. I know my connection string is correct. But can anyone tell me how to do this?
1. Send SQL Query such as "select * from users where userid=" 2. Read the result of the query
I used to use ADODB and recordsets but ASP.NET appears to use something called datasets and I am really struggling to get my head around how this works.
Every example talks about displaying the data. I want to read the data not show it.
Any help appreciated or some clue as to how to resolve this issue