There are so many ways to use database in asp.net/ado.net, I'm a bit confused about their difference from the performance point of view.
So apparently SqlDataSource in DataReader mode is faster than DataSet mode, at a cost of losing some bolt-on builtin functions.
What about SqlDataSource in DataReader mode vs manual binding in code? Say creating a SqlDataSource ds1 and set "DataSourceID" in Gridview, vs manually creating the SqlConnection, SqlCommand, SqlDataReader objects and mannually bind the myReader object to the gridview with the Bind() method.
Also Gridview is a very convenient control for many basic tasks. But for more complex scenarios it requires lots of customization and modification. Now if I do not use gridview at all and build the entire thing from scratch with basic web controls such as table and label controls, and mannually read and display everything from a DataReader object, how's the performance would be like compared to the Gridview-databind route?
I don't have a tested answer for you, just an opinion. Re your own connect vs SqlDataSource, there should be no differenct. The SqlDataSource has to do everything you do so I don't see any performance implication on a single screen. With that said, though, I could see somepotential connection pooling issues since minor differences in connection strings prevent asp.net from reusing the same connection. Without going into details, I think that awell writtenconnection object (that gets reused) is more likely to allow pooling than typing your connection details into wizards all the time. In any case, I wouldn't worry about it at this stage of the game.
Re GridView vs writing all that stuff yourself. If you use all or most or even some of that functionality, I don't think you should attempt to rewrite it -- it's just not worth it. You may even make performance worse if you write it wrong, and frankly, programmer time is worth more than cpu time.
If you're interested in pursuing the issue, Farhan Muhammed wrote a book which gives some fairly detailed numbers comparing different access methods and different controls -- he did real performance comparisons. Real World ASP.NET Best Practiceshttp://www.amazon.com/Real-World-ASP-NET-Best-Practices/dp/1590591003
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Thanks a lot for your opinion. By "well written connection object that gets reused" do you mean creating an SqlConnection object once, and try to re-use that same connection for as many command objects (select,insert,update tasks etc) as possible within the same scope?
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ilovecats:
do you mean creating an SqlConnection object once, and try to re-use that same connection for as many command objects (select,insert,update tasks etc) as possible within the same scope
Well, what I really mean is that you have a common object used by all pages & modules in your application that manages connections for you, along the lines of an Application Block like this onehttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480458.aspx. Using something like this not only hides the details of the connection from the programmer, it goes a long way towards assuring consistency in connection strings -- which is something you need if asp.net is to be able to pool connections (ie, getting a connection is very expensive, so asp.net keeps a pool of connections around for reuse, if you request a connection and one is available from the pool that has an identical connection string, it gets that one instead of creating a new one).
Now, I'm sure that MS uses good programming when they obtain connections, but it used to be the case -- and I think still is largely the case -- that any differences in your connection string (even cosmetic ones, like case and extra white space) prevent sharing (pooling) connections, so if 2 people put in the same connection strings but with different case, they could not share connections in the pool. I don't know anymore how true this, I seem to recall reading that leading and trailing spaces don't matter anymore, but I'm not sure. A data connection application block would typically get the connection info from a config file, which is to say that everyone uses the same config file, which is to say everyone who connects to sqlserver1.mydatabase has an identical connection string. OTOH, if you use the SqlDataSource, every programmer is entering the connectio info (isn't that right -- perhaps I'm missing something because I haven't used them very much, but I think that's how it has to work -- if I'm wrong I hope someone will correct me), raising the possibility that the connection strings will be a little different, hence they cannot share connections.
I think I'll post a question on this topic to see if my understanding is current.
However, I frankly wouldn't worry about it too much. If you get into it, fine, but unless you're working on a high volume application it won't make a meaningful difference.
In my shop, we do use a data access application block that someone else wrote, but that didn't stop me from using the"no programming" features of asp.net 2.0 SqlDataSource because we just aren't a high volume app.
