Passing Recordsets Across Process Boundaries

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You've probably heard that two-tiered client/server applications are passé and that Component Services (Microsoft Transaction Server) and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) are now the tools of choice for building large, multiuser applications. Maybe you know a little bit about the inner workings of COM as well as its distributed counterpart, DCOM, but you're not sure how to proceed with your development.

The ADO Cursor Engine makes passing Recordset objects across process boundaries amazingly simple. From a programming standpoint, you can treat the Recordset object almost like a standard data type, such as an integer.

We'll cover some of the basics of passing Recordset objects across process boundaries in Chapter 15. But be forewarned: this is a fairly advanced topic in COM, and while I cover many of the inner workings of ADO, the inner workings of COM are beyond the scope of this book. I strongly recommend picking up a book or two on the topic such as Understanding ActiveX and OLE, by David Chappell [Microsoft Press, 1996], or Inside COM, by Dale Rogerson [Microsoft Press, 1997].