>This is not an attack on .NET, its criticism on strict typing and tools that force you to type for the sole reason to keep the compiler happy. In all fairness, .NET has taken quire a bit of steps to overcome the problems related to what I refer to. At least now (VS4) you can write office automation solutions that work for what ever version of office by using late binding and bypassing the compile time checks (object type), without having to revert to things like reflection. That is good and was needed.
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>However when hearing the word "Typed datasets", I start to shake and shiver.

Actually, late binding was available for certain office automation tasks a while back.

Where I completely disagree is the argument that typed datasets "only" exist to keep the compiler happy. They have benefits which have been covered many times here. Bonnie Berent was (and I'm guessing still is) a major advocate of them. Cathi Gero also talked about the benefits - I know that for a fact because I worked on a project with her.


I have a question - in the last 10 years, how many different companies have you worked for, and what were the types of team sizes you dealt with. And have you used typed datasets in a production application with other developers.