Declarative programming is all the rage these days (along with functional programming). What is declarative programming? Declarative programming is when you specify the "what" without the "how". Declarative programming is about statements of work--get some records--without specifying the algorithm or logic that indicates how the work is to be performed.
Declarative programming shows up in places like .aspx pages for something like the SqlDataSource. You might see DeleteCommand-"DELETE FROM Customer WHERE CustomerID = @CustomerID". That's it. The framework knows how to take the declarative delete statement and pile on the ADO.NET plumbing. Old timers like me--20 plus years--sometimes don't like declarative programming because we have gotten used to writing the plumbing and using code generators, snippets, and CodeRush (tm) to speed up writing this code. In general though declarative programming saves you time and consequently money simply because writing plumbing code even with a tool like CodeRush takes time, has to be debugged, and can still be a little error prone.
For straightforward pages with something like our ASPxGridView control use declarative programming when it is available. The SQL statements and the declarative bits are not served to the client, so the old worries about exposing schema information or mitigated. You can always step back and write logic if you have to, but you can never get that time back if you start with imperative--old school how and what--code.
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I will be at the Central Ohio Day of .NET in Columbus on April 18th representing Developer Express. Stop by our booth and let me know if you have read the blog.