Databinding Wishlist

[David Kelly]

Rather than complaining to myself about this I thought I should put it out
there and see if others agree with me (or can point out ways it can already
be done).

Two things I would love to see data binding support are:

COMPILER CHECKED BINDING
To be able to bind a properties in a way that is checked by the compiler
rather than waiting for a possible runtime error due to a typo. e.g.
instead of

MyTextBox.DataBindings.Add(New Binding("Text", MyObject, "Name"))

It would be great to write:

MyTextBox.DataBindings.Add(New Binding(Text, MyObject.Name))

and have both the fact that MyTextBox has a Text property and that MyObject
has a Name property are checked at compile time. This of course would be
easier to write as well as Code Completion would help you with the valid
properties. I appreciate that this syntax might be too confusing for the
compiler - that is not really something I understand very well. Maybe there
needs to be a new function like AddressOf to point to the property instead
of the value of the property.

SUB PROPERTY BINDING
When binding a collection of complex objects to a grid you cannot bind a
column to a sub property of the object. e.g.

MyColumn.MappingName = "Address.Line1"

is not valid. This really bothers me as I end up comprimising my design in
order to display the objects in a grid. The same point as above applies
here as well that it should be compiler checked rather than a string as in
my example.

Please comment on this. If many of us feel the same way maybe things will
change in the future (or I will find I am in a very small minority :-) )