I guess one of the major benefits of working on the DAL II proposal is that I have finally learned C#. The Enterprise Data Blocks code are written in C#. I got a great book on C# from Murach.com. I had avoided learning C# before because the syntax seemed very odd. Once I cracked open the Murach book I realized that C# and vb.net are very much alike. I guess this is because all the languages built on the .Net framework have to be somewhat alike or they would not compile to the CLR (Common Language Runtime). I learned that things like Enumerations can be really useful. I then realized that they are also in vb.net I was just not using them. Now my VB code is better.
Another benefit from working on this project is that I developed a good way to distribute my sample web applications. have a web based picture gallery called "Def Gallery" that I give away on my
http://adefwebserver.com/DotNetNuke site. I have avoided upgrading it because I figure anyone who wants the increased functionality also wants it on SQL. The problem is distributing SQL based web applications is a tricky business. DotNetNuke forums are filled with people encountering this problem right now. It was a lot easier installing DotNetNuke when it was distributed with the a Microsoft Access database.
Using the techniques I developed to implement the Access provider I can now distribute my web applications as Microsoft Access based and have a simple web admin screen that allows a person to enter their SQL server info and upgrade the application to SQL. If they enter invalid information the application can simply tell them so.