I know this is a probable open ended question, and I have tried looking around so much over the last year or two... maybe I am looking for a perfect place that doesn't exist! of course it's all about perception no less..

Anyway, just to clarify what I am trying to do and why:

1. I want to be able to use (primarily for the moment) ASP.NET or services thereof to get a dataset - whatever the source data, I can obviously get a dataset of rows/Columns.

2. I want to be able to, as simply as possible, get that data over to the client via xml/json/whatever, to then use in a "variety" of ways.

3. "Variety" of ways meaning I would like to "easily" bind that data to say a grid, or a combo dropdown or just simply render to a textbox - BUT by referencing the dataset as I would say on the serverside.

Now I know this all sounds simplistic, and I know there are lots of complications.. so I have tried the following so far over the last year or so:

1. ExtJS - very good, nice solid framework, but just found it a bit too much to use in everyday basic apps - great if I was building a whole application with it

2. Yahoo YUI - not looked recently, but I guess some of the concepts with ExtJS were similar?

3. JQuery - of course to get data etc, it was ok, and I guess there are so many 3rd party plugins, that a mix and match might work?

4. Adobe SPRY - ironically this was as close to getting a dataset style structure to Javascript/client, although it seemed to drop off/go quiet..? I maybe wrong..

5. I did have a very cursory play with Tibco GI and another one I cannot remember the name of! but again, it felt like it was great to build a whole app perhaps?

Anyway, I am very amazed by all of the technologies coming out, and really not biased one way or the other, I really just want a very simple way of getting data from the server, and having a basic/very flexible way of working with that data in the client without using server technologies.. I need to keep the server flexible as I may need to use PHP, or java technologies not just .NET

So again, sorry for the rambles, but if anyone out there has had a simple experience, or would like to share some ideas, it would be very welcomed!!

David.