Kent

If you were on a deserted island, with only the possessions that you could fit into a shark carcass, wearing flip-flops, and the strap on your left flip-flop was going to break any day now, and your Web browser would only open to one technical article on the GridView control, which article would you want it to be?

That one is the best.

1) Clearly written. Good content poorly written doesn't qualify.

2) Well structured. General->specific, novice->advanced, whatever ... some plan, anyway.

3) Non-obvious. If the same content is in the docs already, no.

4) Thorough. Tell me everything there is to know, including (if applicable) gotchas (those are gold). But ...

5) Scoped. Tell me about one thing. And ...

6) Concise. The content can be long, but it musn't ramble. Stay on topic, please. (Limit the personal content, please, and the editorializing.)

7) Background. IMO, reading about the why adds value to the how.

8) Authoritative. I have to know that you're expert in what you're talking about.

It's a subjective question. Trying to be objective though, I'd say it's anything where the scope and limitations are properly laid out. If the best way for you to cover the GridView is to use an SqlDataSource, then I hope you'll send a small paragraph explain the SqlDataSource, it's advantages and disadvantages and rhyme off a couple alternatives.

When I confront authors about their poor code, they'll often say that specific part wasn't the focus of the article, which to me is a real cop-out.