> Can you tell me how ADO compares to BDE, IBX and IBO regarding
> efficiency and ease of use.

If you are only using InterBase as a backend, then your choice is between
IBO and IBX and if not then you can't use IBO or IBX to access other
databases. So, if it is between these two, please read a lot of comments
people have already made in comparing IBO and IBX in the IBO Community
section.

http://www.ibobjects.com/ibocommunity.html

In short, IBO is much more feature complete and efficient for a wide range
of activities. There is a whole security blanket layer of functionality that
automates many of the difficult and tedious tasks you used to have to do in
your applications. But, you need to take the time to learn how to tap into
all of it. There's more to learn but the savings and ease of maintaining
applications with a simpler code base from relying on the component set more
is a big win.

With IBX you get a very raw thin layer on top of the API. Many of the nice
features and flexibilities of IBO are not found in IBX. You are forced to
spell out every detail of your application in code rather than relying on
built-in functionality. Unless you are doing something very brain-dead
simple, you are going to struggle a lot with IBX to get a nicely finished
and polished product.

Regards,
Jason Wharton
CPS - Mesa AZ
http://www.ibobjects.com