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I'm currently building a multi-tenant, single code-base MVC app hosted on Windows Azure and have come up with my own application framework work to support it.
Although it works I'm still not a 100% happy with it and I was wondering if anyone knew of a good example of multi-database,single code base out there ?
I'm not sure about the multitenancy, but KiGG is really nice example of domain driven design and application supporting multiple databases. It doesn't use multiple databases at the same time, but they way the layers are designed allows very nice extensibility, for example for caching or logging.
I think the design approach of KiGG is very good for multitenancy too, and even if it doesn't answer your question completely, I think it is worth of reading the code anyway.
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I've been given a short amount of time (~80 hours to start with) to replace an existing Access database with a full-blown SQL + Web system, and I'm enumerating my options. I would like to use ASP.NET MVC, but I'm unsure of how to use it effectively with my short timetable.
For the database backend I'll be using Linq to SQL as it's a product I already know and can get something working with it quickly.
Does anyone have any experience with using ASP.NET MVC in this way and can share some insight?
Edit: The reason I've been interested in ASP.NET MVC is because I know (100% confirmed) that there will be more work to do after this first round, and I'd like my maintenance work to be as easy as possible. In my experience Webforms applications tend to break down over repeated maintenance, despite discipline.
Maybe there's a middle ground? How difficult would it to be for me to, say, build the app with Webforms, then migrate it to MVC later when I have more time budgeted to the project?
Edit 2: Further background: the Access application I'm replacing is used in some capacity by everyone in the building, and since it was upgraded from Access 98 to 2003 it's been crashing daily, causing hours of lost productivity as people have to re-enter data since the last backup. This is the reason for the short amount of time - this is a critical business function, and they can't afford to keep re-entering data on a daily basis.
There really are no good answers.
I'd be very surprised if you could recreate a non-trivial business application in a new format (web) in any 'short' amount of time (unless you measure 'short' to be 6 months).
ASP.NET MVC provides (hands down) the most convention available with any beginning web project.
ASP.NET lets you drag-and-drop to get things working, but it breaks maintenance horribly for non-trivial applications.
If it were me, I'd do three things:
Ask my boss if he wants me to recreate an entire business application across a completely different platform.
Tell him he can either have it more quickly now (ASP.NET), or more quickly later (ASP.NET MVC).
Let him make the call.
Personal Addendum: I've used both ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC for web applications. MVC is just better. Not faster, but better. It made web development 'fun' again for me.
MVC isn't really a RAD development framework.
You'll be writing much more infrastructure code than the RAD Webforms alternative of dragging a datagrid and a datasource onto a .aspx page. I love MVC but if you're under the gun go with Webforms. MVC can be faster, but only if you have infrastructure pre-built.
MVC 2 alleviates some of this by including Model based HTML helpers like Model.EditorFor() but it's not good enough yet. No quick grid code. Paging? You're rolling your own pager. Ajax? Write your own JQuery.
Sure, there are 3rd party and open source libraries available for all this stuff but in my experience smushing them all together and making sure they play nice is also time consuming.
Simple web application + tight schedule = ASP.NET webforms.
Complex web application + tight schedule = ASP.NET MVC.
I've found that as the complexity of a web app increases linearly the complexity of a webforms app increases exponentially. Once you start writing your own server controls (NOT user controls, as those are still relatively simple), which can be necessary for more complex UI, you need to have an intimate knowledge of the whole page lifecycle, how the viewstate works, and other obscure parts of webforms that the framework abstracts from you.
MVC, while it requires you know HTML well, does great on the tail end of complexity. No matter how complex the application is, you're still dealing with POCOs and methods in your controller. Once you get over the initial hurdles, its smooth sailing. Development difficulty increases at the same pace as website difficulty.
Personal experience: I converted a relatively complex website using custom server controls to ASP.NET MVC and cut the codebase in half. I also drastically reduced the complexity of the code as well.
The only caveat I have is that ajax is easier to do using ASP.NET AJAX. So if you're going to develop a web app that relies heavily on ajax then webforms may just beat MVC.
Migrating from ASP.NET to MVC isn't always the easiest. You have to move from a codebehind-based application to one where your controllers are unaware of your UI. Also, MVC relies heavily on the URL to determine the intent of the user, whereas ASP.NET relies on event handlers.
Personally, if I felt an application was destined to be MVC, I wouldn't waste time developing it in ASP.NET. But then, I've had the benefit of getting past the initial learning curve. Which wasn't all that bad IMHO. I had more trouble learning all the HTML and HTML forms that ASP.NET kept me from learning.
With this deadline i think it's more convenient to use the ASP.Net Webform. After this first phase with more time/budget you can start to develop new parts of your application using the MVC since they can coexist.
Also be aware of the Ajax and grid code. In MVC they usually take longer to develop but also at least for me they appear to be more robust because you really have to know what you're doing.
This question is from 2009, would be nice if the author give some feedback of his decision.
EDIT: Take a look into http://mvcscaffolding.codeplex.com/ if you still need a RAD using asp.net MVC.
Once you get running with MVC, it's pretty quick, but it takes a while a) to learn and b) to build up a suite of useful bits of code.
If your UI is not going to be complicated, it can be very easy to set up a quick data entry interface.
If your UI is to be really, really simple, you might like to look at ASP.net dynamic data.
You can also look the Entity Framework to bind to your database, this will create your models to be used with MVC. But Like jfar said, under short deathline pressure, go for what you know best!
ASP.Net MVC is good, but ....
If you haven't developed a system using ASP.Net MVC before, then using it on a project with a short deadline is a risk.
If your application is a "simple" CRUD application then I would go with Dynamic Data: http://www.asp.net/dynamicdata/
(Paddy just beat me to that one)
If your system is really big you could consider SharePoint Access Services http://blogs.msdn.com/access/archive/2009/10/21/net-developer-blogs-about-access-2010.aspx
Evolutionary Software Development
From experience I vouch for it - it's how I program, it works regardless of technology.
In short: do what your gut-feel tells you (code something), modify as you find errors/omissions, and when it works, you're done (but for the documentation).
Another option is to use Alpha Five v10 --
It recently received a thumbs up from Infoworld
check out http://blog.alphasoftware.com/search/label/Press%20coverage
Both frameworks contribute enough in delivering a solution, but WebForms automate some of tasks involved in UI functionality, like data paging, sorting, state persistence or custom data persistence and more, BUT... if you really sit down and say, ok what do i need to do? ... design, navigate, modelize, present and then figure out how to show layout, how to connect to data, how to bring data, how to bind them with UI, how to paginate, sort and finally edit, really put your mind down and compare techinques in each framework that accomplishes all that, you will know that MVC is more natural and team oriented. You need tools like EF Code First, a CSS framework like Bootstrap and jQuery, apply techniques like IoC, SoC, Layering etc and use for example Automapper for doing the boring stuf, but no matter how many things you will have to consider, it will always be match more easy, natural and direct than having to know all the various configuration of the numerous controls and managers that WebForms require. Except if your project is an ERP with CMS capabilities where ... you know :-)
Anyway, modern skils require to adapt in today's trends and MVC is just a good host to help you use them without suprises.
I ve written tons of WebForms code but i am not touching it again.
So, final point is that in 2014 with all those tools and frameworks out there, MVC is not slower but rather the opposite, but requires an initial, small to me, efford to gather some resources and lock a few methodologies.
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It seems to me like there's a lot of sheeping going on, with everyone jumping on the MVC bandwagon.
Almost everyone is declaring WebForms as evil and satan without much persuasion. Then they go on to say that Controls are evil and they shouldn't be in a Web app. How are you going to show anything without any controls?
I remember when WebForms first came out and everybody loved them. I guess in a few years, people will sheep on to the next thing and declare MVC evil because you had to actually create controls to use MVC and they'll say you have to develop an application and not worry about the controls.
The way I see it MVC can be achieved in WebForms by not including the RunAt in the Form tag.
Then if you want to retrieve data, just use Ajax.
Can someone persuade me on why I should use MVC and not WebForms?
You shouldn't arbitrarily decide between one or the other; don't plump for the MVC framework just because it's the new kid on the block and everyone's singing its praises, especially not if you're comfortable with doing things using Web Forms. Practically every existing system is going to be using the older, more established technology, and there's nothing wrong with that.
While it's true that the MVC framework does allow for even easier separation of concerns (after all, that's what the MVC pattern is for), it also brings with it the responsibility of writing more HTML, and I think a slightly greater understanding of how the web works; not necessarily an unreasonable requirement, but you could argue it'll slightly slow you down the first few times you set about using it.
To be honest, I agree that Web Forms takes a lot of undeserved flack. Granted, there's a lot of magic going on in the background, and you get less control over some of the HTML output, but it's not exactly impossible to style with CSS (you end up using !important a lot, perhaps), and it's also not impossible to get some separation of concerns, even if it doesn't meet the purist's view of what that might be. You can still write pretty horrible code using the MVC framework. If you're looking to throw together something quickly, and you're good with Web Forms, then you're going to be able to achieve that very quickly, and it's nothing to be ashamed of, is it?
That's not to say, of course, that you should stick to your guns and ignore MVC either; it's a good framework (in fact, it's a very good framework) and it does confer several benefits which you might want to take advantage of in the long run. You also have to remember that it doesn't automatically nullify everything you learned about ASP.NET 2.0, either; a lot of the supporting architecture is embraced in the MVC framework, including things like the membership providers.
In Webforms:
Both Viewstate and Postbacks have been made lot of problems and increased complexity of the web application development. Many web pages having hundreds of KB size of Viewstate that affected the performance of the applications sometime.
Developers do not have the control of the rendering HTML of web forms and Server controls that render html with mixed inline style and deprecated tags that does not follows standards.
The page life cycle of the Web Form is too complex and has the tightly coupling between all things in the ASP.net framework and a single class is used both to display output and handles user input.
Unit testing is almost an impossible task. Today unit testing is very important in modern software development especially when we following agile methodologies and practices. Since web is a stateless thing, Events, Postbacks and Viewstate are not a good way.
With asp.net MVC all these things are simplified
If these things don't apply to you and you enjoy using Webforms then stick with what you do best. Don't try to fix something thats not broken.
For more detail refer to : Shiju's blog of ASP.net MVC Vs ASP.net Web Form
I see the key advantages of MVC as:
Much cleaner and simpler architecture. No more guessing which event you have handle to hook up your data correctly. No more having to insert a hook to "fix" a data binding problem because the framework doesn't do exactly what you want.
The framework doesn't get your way as much.
Decoupled architecture makes much more of the code more easily tested.
More closely aligned with the architecture of the web. For people coming from a WebForms background this may not seem to be an advantage until you embrace it and design for it instead of trying to write WebForms-like applications in MVC. Fortunately, I had explored Ruby on Rails some before using ASP.NET MVC and had already started to write my WebForms apps in a more RESTful way.
History/Ubiquity -- despite the fact that Microsoft is just rolling it out, MVC is a well-known and highly respected pattern. It's widely used for lots of web applications in many frameworks. Learning MVC will give you a leg up if you need to switch to a different technology where they are also doing MVC -- say RoR or Java/Struts.
The disadvantages:
Microsoft's implementation is new and not as mature.
Few third-party "controls"/plugins for round-trip use -- generic grids and such, though there are lots of plugins on the client-side via jQuery.
Requires unlearning some paradigms from WebForms to effectively use it.
The framework doesn't do as much heavy lifting for you; you'll have to learn some Javascript and write more client-side code because the framework won't inject it for you.
WebForms is a great framework, but it does requires for you to dig in and understand it. And yes, you should still be an expert in HTML and JavaScript. Every complaint that I ever hear about WebForms comes from someone who didn't take time to understand WebForms. Here are my answers to a few of them.
ViewState is Evil and will slow down the page
This reminds me of the programmers who made everything a global variable. You can certainly do it, but you SHOULD NOT! It's the same with WebForms and ViewState. Don't use ViewState unless you need to, and then only sparingly. There is nothing wrong in adding 1000 characters of view state to the html, if it will bring better user experience and/or speed up development time. You can experience the same problem in MVC by littering the page with hundreds of hidden input controls, and yes I've seen it. And by the way, ViewState is not "magical" it simply stores some data in a single input control and also encrypts it for good measure.
WebForms generates "ugly" html and is littered with long ids
Well, first of all, nobody actually looks at generated hmtl (did you look at google.com for example, it's a mess?!). Second, if you really care about generating specific html, it takes less than an hour to create your own re-usable component or control, with html of your choosing. Or you can take existing control, override rendering and use that control instead. Once again, you have to know where to go and how to do it, but once you know, it will be a great productivity boost without any sacrifices. Long ids are automatically generated to ensure uniqueness across the page. If you ever get a chance to develop a complex MVC view, you'll notice that you will inventing your own long id pattern, so that you can parse the form fields correctly on posting.
WebForms disallows multiple forms per page
I've been developing for 10 years and only once did I need multiple forms. And then I figured out that I didn't. You do have to understand HTTP requests and responses and how to achieve them with WebForms, but if you do, you'll never need multiple forms, nor will you ever think about "forms" at all.
WebForms pages are not testable
Absolutely not true. Even if you don't like MVP (which I don't), there are other techniques to test anything you want to test. It is true that if you just use pages in WebForms as is and put all logic in code-behid, it's probably not going to be testable and it's not a good idea. However, just like in MVC or Windows Forms applications, you can and you should, at least for complex views, create intermediary layers such as views and controllers. I prefer encapsulating functionality into user controls which implement an interface or inherit a base class. Then the page on which user controls reside on acts like a "master controller". Individual views, or user controls in this case, can be tested because they all implemement an interface or base class.
JavaScript is hard to do in WebForms
JavaScript is actually easier to implement in WebForms than in MVC. You sure have more options! But once again, you have to know WebForms well in order to realise this. In WebForms you can "inject" javacript with reusable components and controls. Or you can use it just like in MVC or plain HTML after changing a setting on the page to keep ASP implementing id naming scheme.
Having said all this, what does WebForms have to offer that MVC does not? Encapsulation and reusability of presentation components is by far the biggest, in my opinion. For complex views, I develop individual components (server or user controls) and than a custom controller or presentation factory weaves all of them into place. Additionally, design-time html is far cleaner in WebForms than in MVC, making design and styling a lot easier for properly trained graphic designers. It's cleaner because there is no programming code in design-time html, only markup (I don't use data binding expressions). And of course prototyping is much much easier in WebForms. For prototypes I will normally ignore all of the best practices and resort to wizards and ugly code-behind code that hits the database directly.
I could go on, but the main point I'd like to make is that WebForms and MVC are very different patterns and require different sets of knowledge and mindset to deliver great solutions. Both require as much of Web/HTTP/CSS knowledge as you can get. If I had to make one recommendation, generally, but not always, for high-traffic public website (such as blog) I may lean towards MVC. For complex web application, either internal/Intranet or membership external/Internet application, I would lean towards WebForms.
WebForms work fine and if you like them, continue to use them.
Three of the big advantages to MVC model as I see it are:
ViewState is gone, which could create a fairly sizable amount of traffic over the wire.
URLs can be remapped to mean something as is all the rage now.
Scaffolding. I don't know, personally I think this is satan and encourages terrible programming habits, but other seem to think its a beautiful idea.
It also encourages a a proper separation between business logic and presentation by enforcing the Model-View-Controller pattern, but good WebForm code can mostly do that as well.
So, really, if you are fine with the overhead of WebForms, and ok with ugly URLs and don't want scaffolding, stick with WebForms.
EDIT: Oh, I did miss one major advantage of "clean" urls. And MVC application is much friendlier for SEO. It also gives you fine control over HTML, but frankly, I don't consider that much of a step forward.
I think part of the problem, is that many people don't realise that MVC isn't an M$ invention, nor is it a replacement for webforms. Certainly, people like "new" things, and people like to throw buzzwords around, particularly to improve their resumes...
Finally .NET developers have some choice, and with that choice, they are being thrust some degree of responsibility for the decisions they make. I'm not surprised many webforms developers are nervous about this responsibility. It's not been there before. Ultimately, it can make you a better developer, or a worse one. It's now up to you.
People loved webforms, because it was better than ASP (Classic). And yes, in 5 - 10 years, I'm sure someone/group much smarter than I, will evolve a new paradigm/pattern.
Be careful with the sheep lable, as in a way, by holding onto a vendor specific pattern (webforms) you are potentially a bigger "sheep".
MVC is now across a variety of platforms, and means your potential to develop meaningful and stable solutions to problems can be dramatically increased. Or decreased. It's ultimately up to you. If you're not ready to go, then wait for ASP.NET MVC to mature. But don't close your mind to anything, particularly a pattern that is very very well established!
I recommend reading Rob Connery's extremely inflammatory blog. He certainly strummed my pain with his fingers! Then go and read RoR stuff, Cake, and Struts. All of these will start showing you the vision that the guys who brought MVC to .NET have (~ish) and hopefully will inspire you to see problems differently!
There have been several, more detailed, answers here, so rather than repeat anything they have said I'll try to keep my answer a bit more succinct. You shouldn't, necessarily use MVC over webforms, just as you shouldn't use webforms over MVC - they are both tools and are more, or less, appropriate in different situations. I was first exposed to MVC quite a few years ago on J2EE, when .NET was first coming out (I'm not sure the ASP.NET MVC was available at that time). It gives a really nice, clean framework and gives more "web" applications (i.e. request/response), but you can also add in a lot more client-side functionality using AJAX - I have done some really funky things using AJAX on a php app I wrote a while ago and that is all usable under MVC.
There are some things that MVC does better and some things that webforms do better, but if you don't know both technologies you can't choose the best one for the current project you are doing, so please don't do yourself a disservice - go and learn MVC. Even if you never use it directly, it may still give you useful "theory" knowledge you can apply in other tools. I try to learn as many different things as I can, as the more strings to my bow I have, the less likely it is that I will not be able to solve a problem (for example, in that php app, I used php, hooked into a bit of ASP, and even had DOS and *NIX batch/script files performing certain functions - each tool had its place and was best suited to the job to which it was allocated).
Not me. MVC is pretty cool in a resume, but for our customers (those who pay for our work), it's not a show stopper.
They usually want applications that are right, fast and secure. That's all. They will not want to change the third layer of the client part in three years ! In three years, they will change every thing or nothing at all.
Layers are fun to architect and to code, but they cost a lot to create and to maintain and they are not relevant to our customers. MVC is pretty cool but really useless and expensive.
Unless, of course, you are developping applications for 4 OS and 3 plateforms... But you will then be a minority.
:o)
This is a stupid discussion - they are different, ASP.NET MVC and WebForms are different technologies! I'm using MVC for all new projects, but when I am faced with a need for RAD I use WinForms, because it is simple and there are a lot of controls already written by gurus.
Stop discussing this. Who wants to understand difference? Just try both technologies and you will understand by yourself.
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update: I know there is no one best way to do everything. Sorry for not saying that right off. In the context of the data-access tutorials, if you had to do the project he did in that tutorial, would you do what he did or would use use MVC, if you had to choose one of them?
Update: Is MVC the more appropriate way to program asp.net applications, instead of the tutorials found here:
http://www.asp.net/Learn/data-access/
Original:
I ask, because I initially learned about MVC with Java applications, then things like RoR, and Django. These other projects and companies spoke as if MVC had been around for a very long time, and from what I found out it had. Then Microsoft started putting MVC into the .net framework.
I ask because I don't know how to design things very well and thought I was doing well to emulate what's on the asp.net site with Scott Mitchell's tutorial. I thought that creating abstract layers in a BLL was the way to go until I found out about MVC and now asp.net's MVC.
I honestly don't know what the "right" way is to do things. I just create what I need, but I can't help feel like I am missing something.
Is MVC the correct way to start doing things in large projects, specifically I mean MVC and ASP.NET, but could just as well mean PHP and one of their MVC frameworks.
I'd like to settle on a standard way of doing things...for now anyway.
And, out of curiosity, why did Microsoft only now start doing MVC?
UPDATE: Is MVC better than the current tutorial set on asp.net?
I'm referring to the Scott Mitchell tutorials where he creates the BLL for abstraction. Or is that a linq question as well. I should have said that I understand the need for keeping logic and presentation separate but unsure the best way to do it. I was using the asp.net tutorials. It worked fine. Then I found out the rest of the world, as I saw it anyway, was using MVC. Then Microsoft started developing MVC, so to me the other method seems obsolete and the wrong way to do things.
No, it's not the only best way to do things.
MVC is just a design pattern. The goal of all design patterns is simplicity. So as long as it makes your design simpler, go with it. If it makes things more complex for your specific application, try a different approach.
Unfortunately, some people think if they see a pattern, they should use it. It's just not true. Design patterns don't inherently make your application better. They are not an end. They are a means to an end (which is simplicity). So you should use them only if they are worth it.
In my opinion, over-architecting things without a good reason is worse than writing code without any specific design.
EDIT: Regarding ASP.NET MVC: I have a negative personal bias toward ASP.NET Web forms. Before MVC, I did most of the dynamic aspects of advanced projects by writing custom handlers to have fine grained control over the HTML. Web Forms make Web development very easy but they have particularly a couple things that are good but sometimes are problematic. The first of which is ViewState and the second is complex WebControl architecture. Don't get me wrong. Those are signs of brilliance of ASP.NET. I haven't seen a single platform for Web development as easy as ASP.NET Web Forms and this is only because of great WebControl support which requires ViewState. However, in some projects, you want to have precise control on rendered HTML (specially when you have some client-side logic). You also want to make server side code maintainable in large projects. In those areas, ASP.NET MVC really shines. But I think ASP.NET Web Forms will remain a great technology where it's more applicable. After all, as I said regarding design patterns in general, you should carefully evaluate your design to see which one better fits your needs.
Specifically, about data access, MVC usually requires more code than Web Forms counterparts. For presenting tabular data (i.e where GridView is applicable), I think ASP.NET Web Forms is the easier way to accomplish things. However, most data driven Web apps are not just manipulating a table directly in a database. They have complex layout. StackOverflow is a great example of this. It is certainly data driven, but ASP.NET MVC better suits it.
There is no "right" way to do things without knowing what "things" are. MVC is a design pattern that solves a specific common problem - separation of presentational and domain logic. Every design pattern is a commonly accepted "good" solution to a specific problem.
Those solutions, combined with knowledge and experience are building blocks for a good design. The "right" way to do things is to study your problem domain, research on possible solutions and apply the set of solutions that work best to solve it. Making mistakes is a part of the process as well, so don't be afraid to experiment and then refactor with rigor until you reach the solution that serves you best.
MVC is the worst way to develop applications, except for all other ways that have been tried. :-)
Joking aside, MVC is one application design that encourages us not to write spaghetti code. It's a guideline that reminds us to keep business code separate from presentation code. This is very helpful as the application gets more complex.
There are other variations that achieve that same benefit, but are not strictly the same as MVC. Presentation-abstraction-control (PAC) is one example.
As for why Microsoft is so late in adopting MVC, I'm not surprised that they are. They are pretty well-known (at least in recent years) for being conservative instead of innovative. They prefer to let other smaller companies take the risks in an unproven market, then they learn from the mistakes, churn out an overengineered competitor solution, and dominate through marketing.
Example: Microsoft Internet Explorer was considered to be a latecomer to the browser market. Netscape had become very popular, leading the way in providing a platform for people to view HTML. Once the amount of HTML content on the Internet was at a useful level, Microsoft belched up their onomatopoeic "IE" product and quickly captured an overwhelming market share.
MVC is just one way of doing things. I like it because it helps to promote extensibility and is structured to allow testing and code reuse. There is no silver bullet, one true way to do everything but I use it quite often.
In regard to Microsoft, I would say that they adopted the pattern as an alternative to WebForms development for the reasons I mentioned above. I would recommend looking at Rob Conery's MVC Storefront and kind of play around with the examples to see how it works for you.
There is no "best" way to code things. It depends on the application in question; sometimes MVC is the right choice, and sometimes it's not. A good developer is able to weigh his/her options and choose the one that's best suited for a task at hand, instead of just going with the method du jour
If MVC solves the Primary Technical Imperative of managing complexity in your application then it may be a good solution, but it is by no means the only solution.
MVC is one of any number of design patterns. Whether it's the best technologically, or the simplest, or for what types of projects it's appropriate, are are all arguable (see other SO threads). In any case, few would argue against the prevailing consensus that for most cases, it's "Good Enough".
But it has the undeniable benefit that a lot of people use it, on a lot of different platforms.
So if you want to use a methodology that is likely to be around a while; or you don't want to depend on one vendor for support and extension and refinement; or you work in a group that would like to grow by hiring people from various backgrounds who will grok a shared methodology quickly; or you would like to maximize your opportunities to move on if you need to, then MVC is one of the very best ways to support those goals.
MVC being "Better" or "Worse" pattern is relative to the project.
Before I get pointed to one of those 'VS.' questions like below...
ASP.NET webforms + ASP.NET Ajax versus ASP.NET MVC and Ajax framework freedom
Should I pursue ASP.NET WebForms or ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET MVC Web application vs ASP.NET Web Application
... please let me state that I'm not looking for a comparison.
Some of my concerns that I need answers for include:
Is the learning curve for doing crazy UIs (e.g. having UI for building a BOM tree online) steep? Lots of people posting questions seem to be having problems with some UI requirement or another which has me worried. Is the technology mature enough to handle those type of requirements?
Is there a pretty well developed community and how available is online literature? You can get tons of literature for WebForms.
Would the time to develop it be comparable or less to building a traditional enterprise WebForms site?
How long would it take to get a whole team of developers comfortable (if not enamored) with WebForms to become well versed in ASP.NET MVC?
The truth of it I think is that StackOverflow is Google-like product and ASP.NET MVC might be great for that. But I'm stuck developing software in the Your company's app category.
alt text http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/simplicity.png
So taking a plunge could prove very costly later on if something can't be done or it has to be hacked. Hope to hear from those that have taken the plunge.
Thanks.
About 3 months ago, I was told that I needed to develop an enterprise web-app (well, a series of small web-apps actually), but that I could choose whatever technology I wanted.
Since I'm most comfortable with VS/C#/.Net, the dilemma was whether to choose ASP.NET WebForms or ASP.NET MVC2 -- Unlike you, my only background was with Windows Forms (WinForms) and a little WPF. So I had to research (and try-out) both WebForms and MVC.
Just like you, I realized that my app would be neither Google nor Apple like, but your bog standard company app with thousands of buttons and boxes, etc. WebForms seemed like it would be the fastest to deploy, but hard to test and hard to maintain on a long-term basis. MVC seemed to have a much steeper learning curve, but once established, testing and maintenance would be a breeze.
I only fiddled with WebForms for a week, so I can't really comment on it. But MVC is definitely everything I was expecting it to be.
Yes, it's a steep learning curve. Concepts that were new to me:
Model-View-Controller (MVC)
Separation of Concerns (SoC)
Model Binding
Unit Testing and Test Driven Design (TDD)
Mocking and Stubbing
Dependency Injection (DI)
The books that helped me the most were:
Pro ASP.NET MVC2 by Sanderson (MVC, Model Binding, DI, TDD)
The Art of Unit Testing by Osherove (TDD, Mocking, Stubbing, DI)
I also had to brush up on my HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
Overall, there seems to be a fair amount of ramp-up work in the beginning, but maintaining and extending the existing application has been pretty painless. Whenever I've been asked to make changes, it's been fairly easy and I've typically been able to deliver on-time or even sometimes ahead of schedule.
In an ideal world, writing an MVC app would happen with 2 people. One person writing the core code and a second person writing the UI and the Views (HTML, CSS, Javascript.) Although it's entirely possible to do it all by yourself. (which is what I'm doing right now...)
I have run into some hitches deploying in the Enterprise, though. Internally, my company is running Windows Server 2003 and IIS6. Unfortunately, we have been unable to get the app to deploy properly on IIS6 when using Virtual Pathing. (All the references to and in the CSS files are broken.) If you plan on deploying MVC, I would recommend using IIS7 or higher. MVC supposedly works on IIS6, but requires that your IT department be willing to figure out how to get it to work.
Edit: I just realized I never directly answered your questions. Here goes:
My personal experience has said, that, yes, the learning curve is steep for building good Models and UIs, but I'm not really a web-developer so I've been working with that handicap. The good news is that the MVC technology is pretty mature.
Yes, the community is pretty well developed and growing. You'll get a lot of good answers from StackOverflow as well as MS's ASP.NET MVC sub-forum.
I have no personal experience coding WebForms, but I have coded plenty of WinForms apps and I feel like it's taken me approx. 3 times longer to build this MVC app. The initial investment is a bear, but regular maintenance and improvements seem to come WAY faster, especially as the app has grown... Since you seem to have a team of programmers, it may come faster for you guys as you can probably split up the learning/workload.
Again, no prior experience with WebForms, but what I can tell you is that as I was learning ASP.NET MVC, there were times when I was struggling to understand what was going on because I had no prior ASP.NET background. (Example: Membership and Role Providers -- I had to code my own recently. Boy was that fun...) On the plus side, I didn't have any "old ways of doing things" (aka. WebForms) to unlearn either. If you have a team of folks enamored with PostBack / CodeBehind, you can bet that MVC is gonna seem awfully strange at first. But hopefully your team will see the advantages that MVC brings and embraces it fully.
Oh, and it should be noted that you can blend MVC and WebForms. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition. Although, if I were in your shoes, I'd try to embrace MVC as much as possible and only use WebForms where it clearly makes more sense.
Ok, I hope this helps... :-)
I can answer half of your question. I've just dove into MVC from a WebForms background. There is (obviously) a learning curve, but it's really not very steep. I've been able to make the transition with little effort, and I find the whole thing to be a breath of fresh air.
However, I am quite capable with front-end technologies (HTML & Javascript), and I don't like the HTML the WebForms and Microsoft ajax framework generates. If you and/or your team are like this, you will love it. However, if you are proud of the in-depth knowledge you have of the event hierarchy, or if you love the simplicity of UpdatePanels, then you'll probably bridle against the changes.
The documentation is OK, enough to get going happily, anyway. Here's a few videos to whet your appetite:
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T49F
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T50F
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T44F
Here's your documentation home:
http://www.asp.net/mvc/
For a bit more info, the first chapter of the asp.net mvc 1.0 book is online and can be downloaded for free. See ScottGu's blog here:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/03/10/free-asp-net-mvc-ebook-tutorial.aspx
And, the full code for the chapter can be found here:
http://www.codeplex.com/nerddinner
Finally, in terms of development time, I think it might take a bit longer to develop apps using MVC (although I have no evidence of this), but I think supporting, maintaining, bugfixing and enhancing will take a lot less time. So, with a small up-front investment, I think you'll more than recoup that effort.
Anyway, like I said, these are my preliminary findings. I still have yet to hit a really hairy problem.
As you know its all about the people first, technology 2nd. You can simply build out a new functionality of your company app because they can co-exist, then you can answer all those questions yourself.
It's new stuff so it will of course take more time than what you're used to but heck its all fun so jump right in and start answering these questions for your own people and app.
Interesting that your question focused all on your concerns and not on any benefits. Have you asked yourself the "why" question? If you feel you can be successful with WebForms, why change to MVC? What is there in MVC that justifies the risks? If you were paying for the project, what would you do?
I'm not pitching WebForms over MVC by any means, but as an architect, you need to be able to come back very strong to the question of why you decided to go away from a very well-known quantity to a relatively new one. I think that there are many good reasons to do so, but it not my job on the line. :)