>>>I think if you are using business objects you should not be passing around DataSets - you should be shipping around the business object with teh data attached to it somehow.<
>
>I'll tell you one big reason to pass around the DataSet instead of the BizObject. From our WinForms, all DataAccess is through WebServices (which call BizObjects, which call DataAccess objects) ... DataSets serialize nicely into XML for passing between the tiers.

Right. You can use BOs for this as well - my BOs work this way so when I have complex bus objects they ship the whole BO with the internal DataSets over the wire.

Using just DataSets in this scenario can be more efficient and due to the lack of the ability to completely reattach an object to an instance over Web Services it ends up being that translation needs to happen anyway - which usually amounts to taking the DataSet(s) and reattaching it to the bus objects. The main advantage I see is: You get auto encapsulation (everything related to this object including data and state) is available. That said I use both approaches <g> - when I just need data I ship the data over the wire, but if it's complex data I tend to use the whole BO.

When I was talking about the problems with Web Services I was talking mainly about the issue of not being able to use a WebS Proxy object and somehow be able to reattach it to a real instance. That seems like such a logical thing to do. Instead you have to do mapping and copying in code which stinks which in turn means you usually end up with an extra interface to the Web Service.


+++ Rick ---