 <p>Well if you have total flexibility, I would recommend using C# ASP.NET 4 with MVC3 razor for the UI and application code. Use Entity Framework 4.1 code first for the data access layer.</p> <p>This way you will always work with real objects that you create, and with <code>List&lt;realtype&gt;</code> instead of the total mess that exists with datasets.</p>