A database access from Silverlight 2 tutorial, which includes Web Services and VB XML fun

Imran Shaik - Silverlight 2 Beta 1 - Web Services in "New School" approach.

"There might be a few samples of working with web services in Silverlight but I promise I'll keep you interested with VB.NET exclusive feature VB Literals. This is going to open a whole new way of looking and working with XML and Web Services.

*Note: Don't attempt to do everything I do in this tutorial in C# (especially consuming WebService in Silverlight 2) because you simply can't, C# or any other language doesn't have this feature, so stick to VB.NET for consuming you can use C# for the rest, I'll warn when I am using VB.NET exclusive features, so if you want to convert this to C# you'll get enough warning.

In this tutorial we'll look at

• Creating SQL Server 2005 Database
• Retrieving Data from Database in DataSet
• Consuming DataSet in ASMX WebService (using LINQ)
• Consuming WebService in Silverlight 2 (using VB Literals)

Before you get started with this make sure you have installed

• Visual Studio 2008
• SQL Express 2005
• Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Tools for Visual Studio

..."

I was just chatting with Scøtt Lovegrove last week about this, about how I could talk to SQL Server from Silverlight 2 (SL2). And he confirmed that web services was the "way" which makes complete sense...

Personally I think one of the killer combinations will be ADO Data Services (fka Astoria) on the back end and SL2 on the front. Seems like a great match (to me at least, with what little I know of the two... ;)

Related Past Post XRef:
"Astoria" - HTTP/AJAX Data Services for the Web