Gtk treeview use with large data sources

[Kim Adil <ksadil bigpond net au>]

I have been searching for some time now to figure out how to approach
using gtk treeview ( with a list model) with a sql database. I am using
odbc on multiple platforms , hence gnomedb is not appropriate. Ideally
the scrollwindow will behave as per using the standard list model. My
questions:

(1) should I write a custom list model that I can connect an odbc dsn &
query to the treeview
(2) should I disect gnome-db to find out the professionals approach it
(3) should I give up and page the resultset into pages of 500 row that
can be scrolled easily without

Appreciate any sensible ideas

Thanks
Kim