I discovered an "interesting" feature in vs2003 (and assumedly others). For a winform application when I went to "add new item" there is an entry in their called "Data Form Wizard". This little wizard allows you to connect to a database and build a quick screen that is bound to the data that you can add, edit, delete from. It looks terrible, it has no sepration of tiers but if I need to make a quick screen to access a database this tool saves tons of time. I think there is also an output to a datagrid so that you can edit in the grid. I don't have a ton of time to play with it but its still handy. I would not recommend using it for any quality code but damn its fast :)