A new article on MSDN presents some benchmark results comparing the .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle with the OLE DB provider when interacting with an Oracle 9i database. [System.Error.Emit]

Woah. That's a staggeringly huge difference. For anyone out there that is or is going to be backending their system with Oracle 9i, there's no question that you should used the managed provider and avoid OleDb like the plague. :)

There's an article over on the O'Reilly Network that compares the implementation of XML data binding in .NET to an implementation in Java called Castor. Basically, Castor is to Java as XSD is to .NET. It parses an XML Schema document and emits .java source files for each type.

I don't know if I like the author's choice of using the term "data binding" as it has a slightly different meaning usually: binding visual elements to data sources via some sort of implementation of the MVC pattern.

Gates: Slow going for .Net. Microsoft acknowledges that its key software plan has been slow to catch on and lays out an agenda to move it ahead. [CNET News.com]

Hmm... even though I know very well that .NET is used as an umbrella term, when I see headline like this I can't help but shake my head. In the article they're talking about the Web Services portion of .NET and how not many companies have hoped on the bandwagon as far as delivering custom services. I think is mostly due in part to the power of SOAP as it exists today not being fully understood and that a lot of people are waiting on features that are coming with GXA. Gates also had the following to say about .NET My Services:

"There were elements of (.Net My Services) that in some ways were premature," Gates said. "We feel good about (the vision of .Net My Services), but we made a couple of missteps on this."

The article goes on to say that the failure of .NET My Services was political not technical.