Summary

This chapter introduced you to the new method of binding user interface controls to various sources of data in the new version of ASP.NET. Although the old DataBind() syntax is still available, the new method of using data sources such as a SQL data source, XML data source, or object data sources is quicker, easier, and can produce some extremely powerful results with very little effort on the part of the programmer.

If you want more detail on how data binding works, and how to create your own custom data-bound controls, you can look at ASP 2005 Unleashed by SAMS Publishing (0672328232). This chapter provides enough of an overview of data-bound controls to get you into Visual Studio and coding.