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I am trying to teach ASP.NET MVC to students (undergrads) that have been studying ASP.NET for the last 8 weeks (I know that doesn't sound like much time, but the class is 4 hours per day, 5 days per week with Labs, Quizzes, Exams, and Wrestles).
I haven't gotten the question yet...but I know it is coming...
When would I use MVC instead of ASP??
I don't have any real experience with ASP MVC and I can't find any sort of clear-cut answer on the web. Arguments such as "...the web is stateless and ASP MVC is a closer match etc etc" do not mean much to them. They are starting to notice that ASP has lots of controls that seem to simplify their markup compared to MVC.
I'm trying to give an honest spin, and any feedback would be much appreciated!
TIA
Statelessness is a good one word to explain as already highlighted by the members.
Apart from this ask the following questions to the students?
If they have to do the following with ASP.NET (no MVC), how easy will it be?
Test your views
Mock Http objects.
Viewstate reduction (by design)(
Substitute lightweight viewengine for .aspx.
Thorough separation of concerns.
Clean HTML
etc. etc..
Now explain asp.net mvc in the above context. There may be more to it.
Atleast I think they will get the point, thought this may not be applicable to all project, but what's the harm if we are only gaining from this.
To me, the MVC approach is a very different paradigm from the ASP Forms API. I think the idea of being "stateless" is a good way to explain a very broad topic in one word actually.
One of the major advantages that I've seen is that the MVC framework gives a lot of control over the design and the output of your page. For small projects, this may not be the best use of it, but for large projects, it scales very well because you can make different architectural choices that (personally) I find to be better, such as the way that the MVC framework separates logic from the view.
Also, if you're designing a site that has a lot of Javascript, the control you gain over output in the MVC framework can be very helpful because you don't have to worry so much about how IDs and other markup may be rendered, like you typically do in the ASP Forms framework.
The MVC framework is really a totally different way to design web sites. Personally, I think it is more beneficial for large projects, but I also started out in web languages where MVC was a more popular design choice to begin with.
That's just my 2 cents.
I always thought the ASP.NET MVC Framework was a bad name since its a Design Pattern.
The question should be :
When would I use ASP.NET MVC Framework over ASP.NET Web forms?
The Developer Experience
a) ASP.NET Web Forms tries to abstract away the stateless nature of HTTP from the developer. The state of GUI Elements, and or data is stored in the Viewstate/Session. Everyone Form does a postback to itself, basically mimicking the behavior of a WinForm event driven design.
b) HTML GUI Elements are further abstracted by Controls which can be re-used, bought from 3rd party vendors. This helps developers glue an HTML app together without to much JavaScript and HTML/HTTP Knowledge. Basically similar to the way you would develop VB / WinForms
c) You can do a good job implementing the MVC/MVP pattern in ASP.NET webforms. Look at the Patterns and Practices Web Client software factory to see how they did it.
d) Developing using WebForms you are generally changing the HTML (View) based on user feedback at the server. Most events (user clicks a button, edits a field) are handled at the server in a continuous postback loop executing whats called the ASP.NET Page Lifecycle.
VS
Browser controlled view (dont know what else to call it). All changes to the HTML based on user input is handled in the browser. You will be manipulating the DOM with Javascript.
Note: I basing this on the fact that ASP.NET MVC is most likely driven by basic HTML + Ajax
How I would personally choose between them (never having used MVC, just reading on it)
1) If I was to build a pure stateless front end using Ajax, Jquery, EXT JS type libraries ASP.NET MVC would seem the better fit. Although you could build this in ASP.NET Webforms it seems pointless since you not taking advantage of the Postback model and Server Controls.
2) If I were asked to build a new basic web application, I would stick with ASP.NET Webforms since i'm already familiar with it and know the whole page lifecylce.
3) If I were asked to build a Web 2.0 (hate that term) to have a next gen User Experience, I would probably go with ASP.NET MVC, and use JQuery / ASP.NET Ajax client controls.
4) Many companies have built up a solid set of WebForm controls to use. It would be costly to rebuild them all in a pure stateless ajaxy way :)
For someone with experience (and pains) in Winforms - the biggest difference is no more Viewstate. The state of controls on the form is kept on the client, in the browser and sent to the server for each request.
If you use Javascript, it is easier to make changes on the browser side, while the server side gets an easy way to look at the form as a whole without having to recreate controls binding.
Beyond all the nice things MVC provides - separation of view/code, testability - this was for me the key point to move to MVC.
Apart from all the other excellent responses already listed. Webforms is an abstraction away from HTML.
When you want a html table of data, you put a "gridview" control on a page - what you end up with is "gridview" html, and quite possibly not exactly what you were after.
The shoe fits 90% of the time, but a lot of the time, especially when things move beyond a basic site that the controls don't fit. Using Webforms often means that you don't have full control over the final output that is rendered to the browser.
You can of course extend, or write your own grid control. But wouldn't you just prefer to write the html you want instead?
It's my experience that has the projects get more complex, and UI's get more complicated that you end up fighting webforms more and more often.
http://www.emadibrahim.com/2008/09/07/deciding-between-aspnet-mvc-and-webforms/
Related
I have read just about every question/answers about webforms vs MVC. But none has addressed what I am about to ask.
We are a small development team (3 ppl) and we have a legacy application similar to Crystal Reports.
We need to convert this VB6 app to a web based app. Reason? It was written in VB6 and support for VB6 will be phased out in Windows 8. This application is / will be similar to Crystal Reports / Google Docs where thousands of users will use the web app to generate complex reports from a large database. Charts and graphs will be generated dynamically based on the data queried. All reports can then be exported to PDF and other supported document file types. Possible feature is creating Word documents with this data or at least annotating the PDF reports. Document/Content Management back end also required for storage and searching.
OK - so clearly its a rather complicated web application with loads of database access/queries. The front end will also need to be rather spick (although gridviews not compulsory).
Constraints:
1. Time to market is relatively short (6months to 1 year)
Technology should last or be available for the next 10-20 years - We can't work on this application forever, having to constantly updating and re-writing it every time new technology supersedes older technology. HTML will last beyond this time, but will ASP.NET?
User end performance needs to be relatively quick. it doesn't have to be blistering quick; but it shouldn't lag so much (more than 2 seconds for response) that users begin to complain. (ie ViewState not a prob if it doesn't exceed 100Kb).
Please answer my questions:
So my question to you is: do we go with Webforms or MVC?
MVC sounds attractive but MVC is STATELESS. Do you think this application will need to keep state or can I do without it? Or is it possible to implement state in MVC (confused)?
Some users are in govt departments and have have laptops that a clamped down for security reasons (by their IT Admin) - so Javascript, for a significant number of users will be TURNED OFF. This means JQuery may not be possible technology. Is there some way to accommodate for Javascript and non Javascript browsers?
Thanks in advance.
Sam
Use Web Forms.
Here's why:
1 - Faster development time (rapid application development) - as stated in your time constraint
2 - For complex charts/reports/grids, you'd have to roll your own with ASP.NET MVC (or use a helper someone else has created). But with Web Forms you have a wealth of server controls (and products like Telerik).
So do answer your questions:
Web Forms - see above.
We can't answer that - we don't know how exactly your application will operate. MVC is not stateless per-se, it is stateless in that it doesn't use ViewState. But you can still use things like Session.
JavaScript is client-side, and has no bearing on Web Forms vs MVC. You'll have to cater for scenarios with no JavaScript (minimize AJAX work, effects, etc).
You've mentioned "speed needs to be quick". Well if ViewState is a problem, then turn it off! It annoys me people who say "I hate ViewState, it makes pages slow", when you can simply turn it off at the control or page level.
BTW - i am by no means a Web Forms advocate - i actually prefer ASP.NET MVC. But from what i've read in your question, i would go with Web Forms.
This is completely subjective; use which ever one you want. I personally prefer MVC, but use which ever you want.
HTTP is stateless, no matter what the client or server are. That said, all web frameworks have tricks to make it appear stateful. MVC is not an exception here. It just doesn't use the same trick that ASP.NET Webforms does.
Yes. Detect if they have Javascript enabled, and be sure to provide alternate, server-only ways to do the same functionality.
MVC
I think both are viable choices, but I would personally go with MVC, considering the MVC 3 release candidate is out now, and has some awesome new features. I would go with MVC because it will be extremely maintainable and scaleable once the project is complete. This sounds like it would be very helpful for you since your project does appear to be quite complex. Conversely, however, it would take longer (at least from what I have experienced and read) using MVC over WebForms, so, if you feel that your team really needs to meet that deadline you mentioned, perhaps go with WebForms.
If you wish to proceed with MVC, its stateless nature should pose no problems to your project, at least, not that I know of.
Although the fact that JS may be turned off is slightly irritating to work with, WF and MVC will have to deal with issue similarly, and should have no impact on your final decision.
go with webforms, you can always sub some of the work out to india where they have been using webforms for years, if you get speed problems then let them tackle em by playing with viewstate on component levels
though really
ultra fast asp.net by Rick Kiessig solves 99% of all speed issues with webforms, if you have that book then webforms is a no brainer
mvc was a microsoft fork because a lot of web people could not optimise the viewstate
now you can turn off viewstate per page or per component, or just email india with code and say 'speed this up, someway'.
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I find myself on the edge of trying out ASP.NET MVC but there is still "something" holding me back. Are you still waiting to try it, and if so, why? If you finally decided to use it, what helped you get over your hesitation?
I'm not worried about it from a technical point of view; I know the pros and cons of web forms vs ASP.NET MVC. My concerns are more on the practical side.
Will Microsoft continue to support ASP.NET MVC if they don't reach some critical threshold of developers/customers using it?
Are customers willing to try ASP.NET MVC? Have you had to convince a customer to use it? How did that go?
Are there major sites using ASP.NET MVC (besides SO)? Could you provide links if you have them?
Did you try ASP.NET MVC and found yourself regretting it? If so, what do you regret?
If you have any other concerns preventing you from using ASP.NET MVC, what are they?
If you had concerns but felt they were addressed and now use ASP.NET MVC, could you list them as well?
Will Microsoft continue to support ASP.NET MVC if they don't reach some critical threshold of developers/customers using it?
They will for sure.
Are customers willing to try ASP.NET MVC? Have you had to convince a customer to use it? How did that go?
Customers care about high quality products and price. Just convince them that Mvc will help to raise quality and lower price. Shouldn't be hard.
Are there major sites using ASP.NET MVC (besides SO)? Could you provide links if you have them?
Isn't it enough with SO? :)
Did you try ASP.NET MVC and found yourself regretting it? If so, what do you regret?
I did try and didn't regret it at all. It kills me being forced to work on web forms project again.
Go for it!
I believe ASP.NET MVC has reached that critical threshold, as evident by VS 2010 tooling, ASP.NET, MS employee blog and the extensive effort Microsoft put into the framework thus far. I don't see this framework perishing in the next decade (or two).
By customers, I assume you mean people that I build websites for? The only issue I find with ASP.NET is the hosting solutions. However, this issue is becoming moot as more affordable hosting solutions are found. But usually, if I believe in the technology and that it will work for my customer, my customer trusts me and agrees on it. The customer is also usually comforted by the fact that ASP.NET-MVC is a Microsoft product. Having a big company behind a technology is always a nice thing to have, since you can rest assured it will be supported for quite awhile with frequent updates.
ASP.NET MVC is a relatively new framework, and slow adoption of new technology is expected. But this is what I found: http://weblogs.asp.net/mikebosch/archive/2008/05/05/gallery-of-live-asp-net-mvc-sites.aspx . I think you'll see a big influx of websites using ASP.NET-MVC this year when VS 2010/.NET 4 are released with built-in support for ASP.NET MVC.
I never enjoyed developing with C#/ASP.NET more than when I started using ASP.NET-MVC. To a certain extent, ASP.NET-MVC forces you to write good code more so than WebForms due to ASP.NET-MVC inherit separation of concerns and easy customization. And the ability to control HTML output is essential, a feature that was difficult with ASP.NET-WebForms (pre 4.0).
I use MVC and hate it, especially, the front end, web form are far more better in the front end... With loads of javacript on the page, that means it is hard to maintain and take a longer time to develop and debug..
To do a very complicated page, the flexibility of MVC is limited, you will end up with using a lot of javascript control, and you know what? Different controls use different version of jquery, and they have conflict..
It is actually the javascript, and lack of UI flexibility that pulls me off, especially you are NOT working on your code
and we have more issues of browser compatability, with the new browsers coming, you are going to shoot yourself with MVC
MVC front end is very fast if your web site is not too big.. The backend of MVC is very good, it is the front end that blows it over
Why not? The rest of my team doesn't want to.
I have not yet actually tried coding up some ASP.Net MVC(looked at a few examples though) but the main thing holding us back from using it is that all of our code is currently written using Webforms.
Regarding Microsoft support ASP.Net. First Scott Guthrie, the VP of Development at MS is behind it, so that's one feather in its cap. Second its open source now so even if for some strange reason MS decides not to support it going forward you can still tweak it on your own if you need to. In addtion the MVC pattern is somethign that more and more web development platforms are using. It is a great pattern for web development and as a result I can't think of any reason MS wouldn't continue to support it.
If by customers you mean end users, honestly they shouldn't care how you implement the site. If by customers you mean consulting clients, if you can develop faster and they have the servers that can host it, I would think they would be open to it. On top of that youre MVC sites should use less bandwidth than a typical Web Forms web site (IMHO) mainly because there is a lot of additional stuff put into a Web Forms page (for example extra attributes in the HTML htat are tailored for web forms, ViewState) so that should be seen as a positive by them. Now if by customers you mean people integrating with you, then its also a plus since MVC makes it very easy to implement REST based web services (not that WFC doesn't but MVC works very nicely as well).
Hmm major sites using MVC, so far I've found a list here I also know of a number of apps at different companies where large scale MVC apps are in development. I wish I could give more detail, but unfortuantely I can't at the moment.
When I first started out with ASP.Net MVC I thought I was going to hate it. I wasn't a huge fan of Web Forms either, but MVC just felt like a step back to ASP development back before .Net came out. Then I started really getting into it and really finding the pattern is clean, concise, extensible, maintainable, and easy to pick up. Honestly I don't want to ever go back to Web Forms, and anytime I find myself doing a .Net web app I make a point of making it an MVC project.
You need to choose what's more appropriate to your product. Webforms has a few things to recommend it over mvc in some situations.
The big one is a developer working on in-house tools at small to medium shops. In these circumstances:
Large viewstates are not likely to be a problem, because your users typically have 100Mbit upload to your web server rather than a measly 128Kbit or less.
Javascript is likley to be supported by everyone
Development time matters more than widespread cross-browser compatibility or even nice design.
You're likely stuck working with inherited devs who used to do desktop/forms style development, or have a lot of churn among junior devs who don't really know web development.
All of those things together mean that webforms is still a very good fit. And let's be honest: a lot more programmers work at these small to medium in-house shops than do public internet work. So webforms isn't going anywhere.
That said, one of the big things coming up among these small shops is likely to be taking their internal tools and making them available offsite for telecommuters. In that situation, you need to start worrying more about WAN performance odd browser issues where MVC might be a better fit.
Dell is hiring masses of ASP.NET MVC developers in Texas and India for major work on many of their websites.
According to The Gu, ASP.NET MVC will have it's own product and development cycle. It is now 100% detached from ASP.NET WebForms and it's not going away.
Did you try ASP.NET MVC and found yourself regretting it? If so, what do you regret?
I do not regret trying out MVC in fact I love it. When I started it out I hated it I kept looking for the code behind file and was unsure at first how to get values out textboxes and stuff without going textbox1.Text;
Now I cringe every time I go back to webforms and wish I could write it in ASP.NET MVC because I just love how your working with html instead of using drag and drop controls that usually make your life alot harder if you got to customize them to much. I love how ASP.NET MVC likes to focus on good code like design patterns such as the Repository pattern and how to do unit test using TDD.
I have not picked up a book yet in MVC where they talked about how to make good code. I am not saying you can't write good code in Webforms but in the books and classes that I seen teach ASP.NET this never seems to be a main focus.
Like for instance I hate the datasource controls I am tutoring some people in WebForms and they love to drag a datasource in and then write their SQL statements in that datasource. Then in the code behind they use these datasorces to insert their records.
So every time they need to make a new SQL query a new datsource is dragged on and made. So now you all your logic is all mixed together. It makes it so much harder to find out whats going on, switch to different things if needed then of course it is limiting.
Something that revolves around the name "controller" can only mean problems.
I tried following the Nerddinner http://www.asp.net/mVC/ tutorial this morning. I'm comfortable in webforms, but nothing in that nerddinner tutorial made sense, just an outdated, hardcoded recipe from mvc1.0 that dosent even compile with the current mvc2.0, probably Wrox made this tutorial, only they can come up with only formating and no content.
I didn't see anything in there that was good; a bunch of hardcoded conventions I didn't need.
I certainly didn't see anything in there that would make me say I'd want to move from webforms, although this seems to be all the propaganda I read.
They put this tutorial based around wizards, on http://www.asp.net/mVC/ main page, while claiming the model is lean, all of it is generated code they don't explain, the default mvc template project has something like 15 references.
This 2 page website managed to be slow to build and to load.
Was 30 minutes in it until I realized my data model didn't match the one from the tutorial and many things that had been generated using the create controller and create view wizards were now failing.
With what I was provided in the rushed tutorial, I wasn't able to recover the project. I'll just pass until I find better documentation.
Ive been doing a bit of research / reading into mvc recently and was just wondering what the main purpose is.
is it as some people say to seperate the logic from the html
or to create clean url's
i could be missing the point completely, but asp.net forms really seperates the logic from the html and if you just want clean url's why not use a mod_rewrite rule?
MVC is a software engineering concept which is used more widely than just in ASP.net.
In a nutshell it encourages strong separation of:
business logic (the Model) the code which does all the brute force work behind the scenes; dealing with the database, performing large calculations; and
user interface logic (the View) the code which presents information to your users in a pretty way.
The C is for Controller - the ligaments that bind the bones of the model and the muscles of the views and allow them to communicate with each other cleanly.
You are correct that 'normal' ASP.net uses code-behind files so that page markup is kept separate from the code that generates that markup (in contrast to languages like PHP where code is embedded directly amongst HTML), but MVC ASP.net encourages even more separation in the ways I described above.
Take a look at this tutorial for a more detailed discussion of the pattern. Also take a look at this SO question
The MVC pattern has nothing to do with rewriting URLs. ASP.net MVC might make this easier but that is not by any means it's main purpose.
Testability is a big benefit of using ASP.NET MVC. It is non-trivial to write unit tests for ASP.NET winforms. It is much easier to unit tests for Controllers.
If you are doing MVC correctly, your views should be very light, and a lot of your logic is implemented in the Controllers.
Let me compare the two for you:
Asp.net web forms
They matured the old ASP technology that was much more like PHP. Code and presentation were piled up in the same file. Asp.net web forms upgraded this model by providing a mechanism of separating the two. But they built on top of the good things that windows application developers had. The drag drop interface creation with control events just like they exist in a windows application. Event thought code was separate from HTML, they were not separated. You still reference a lot of view controls in your codebehind, hence they're still very much bound to eachother.
Therefore it was rather easy to start developing on Asp.net web forms. But non savvy developers soon got to a bottleneck they didn't know existed (like slow postbacks due to huge view state etc.). Technology used some tricks to make this work. But on a serious large scale application this became quite a problem. Developers had to mingle their code to make it work with Asp.net web forms framework. Their complex forms had complex codebehinds with hard maintainable code with complex state.
The good (as well the bad) thing were at that time rich server controls. Nowadays with web 2.0 they don't seem rich anymore since they don't actually support client side functionality as much as they should. So Microsoft decided to also cram in something else. Update panels. That made partial rendering (and Ajax) possible with almost a flick of a finger. But it came with a cost. Everyone that used (uses) it soon realised it's not a viable solution that a professional application could implement.
Asp.net MVC
Now we have a new technology that doesn't have much in common with Asp.net web forms except for its first part of the name. MVC framework actually does separate code from user interface (view). Controller actions (code that executes on any HTTP request) is kept small and doesn't do anything with visualisation (it doesn't bind data to certain controls etc.). Controller action barely prepares data for the view to either consume or not. It's up to the view. Controller code doesn't in any way shape or form reference any view controls or anything. They're actually separate in MVC.
Views on the other hand just display and provide data. They can be partially or fully rendered. They support Ajax functionality to the point that everyone would like to use. Actually everything is separated into basic little things. Divide et impera (divide and conquer) seems to be the save-line here.
There's not hidden functionality. No flirting with windows development. It pure request response framework. Developer has the ability to 100% control the visual aspect of their app. But for the cost of not having rich controls out of the box. Those may be provided by the community or some developers prefer to create per purpose controls that serve the process much better.
Which one is better then?
Both have their pros and cons. But if you decide to build a semi complex, modern and maintainable application I'd suggest you give MVC a go.
But if all you need to do is a 15 screens application (without any particular interface requirements) it would be much faster to create it using Asp.net web forms.
MVC is a design pattern. Its purpose is to separate business logic and presentation details.
ASP.Net MVC is a mechanism to create web applications using ASP.Net and the MVC pattern.
One of the features of ASP.NET MVC is the ability to use SEO friendly URLs to provide commands to the controller part.
You can do as you have stated but ASP.Net have provided you a mechanism to do this easier.
The way ASP.Net Webforms was designed is that it made it easy for you drag controls on to the web form and code the logic underneath. ASP.Net MVC is designed so you separate your concerns easier.
The URL part of the ASP.NET MVC framework is just a modern phenomena to produce search engine friendly urls. They've infact been around long before the Microsoft team decided to add them to the framework (which required IIS7 before it could be done with no IIS extension).
The greatest pros in my view come from being able to test more easily, and separating off the parts of your application more cleanly. The whole ActionResult architecture of the ASP.NET MVC framework makes it very easy to switch from AJAX to plain out POSTs.
Delphi 5 use to employ the MVC model for its ISAPI extensions, 10 years ago.
MVC is not just an ASP.net thing, it is a design pattern that was widely accepted before it was created within the .NET framework, the thing about MVC is the separation of data from presentation(user interaction) from the business layer. It was just a way for Microsoft to offer that type of design pattern under the .NET framework
Although guys before me already give enough answers to the queston of purpose of ASP.NET MVC there is one thing I would like to add.
The ASP.NET Web Forms tried to abstract html and web from web development. That approach lead to the lacks in performances and usage of rich javascript frameworks.It was possible to create web application without actual knowledge of the web.
And to answer to you initial question, the purpose of ASP.NET MVC, I'll quote Dino Esposito:
With ASP.NET MVC, you rediscover the good old taste of the Web—stateless behavior, full control over every single bit of HTML, total script and CSS freedom.
MVC existed long before people tried to use it in HTML pages. The main reason for MVC is to get a grip on the logic to drive your application. MVC allows you to clearly separate things that should be separate: The model, code which converts the model value for the display and the code which controls the model.
So this is not related to HTML or URLs in any way. It's just that MVC makes it really simple to have clean HTML and simple URLs.
This is a difficult question to ask because it's so wide ranging.
Does anybody know of a scoring system of questions that would aid in choosing between a WebForms and MVC application at the start of a project?
e.g. Is TDD an important part of this project? (If yes score 1 for MVC and 0 for WebForms)
I would consider the following:
Current Skill Set of the team. If you have a large team that aren't going to pick up MVC quickly but are comfortable with Web Forms I'd stick with Web Forms
What level of control do you need? MVC gives you more control but that also means you'll be doing a lot of extra things your self. WebForms gives you a lot less control but there are a lot more things in the box. If being able to control the HTML output is important to you than maybe MVC is a better fit.
Will you need third party integration? There isn't a whole lot of 3rd party control support for MVC however there is a ton of support for webforms. Getting a nice grid in webforms is simple, however you'll be writing a lot of your own code in MVC to solve that problem
As you mentioned, is TDD desirable?
State management is a lot easier in web forms
I have a single question test (disclaimer: it's far from perfect, but does the job a lot of time in making you lean toward each of the technologies):
Is your application more form oriented (e.g. intranet stuff or something) or you are building an Internet-facing Web site (e.g. StackOverflow). In the first case, I'd probably go with Web forms. The latter case is probably better satisfied by ASP.NET MVC.
Another thing: these two are not the only paradigms out there. Before MVC days, I've done several projects by building HTTP Handlers that do the routing and other stuff that MVC does. You could also strip the Web form part of ASP.NET and just use non-server-form Web controls (while you'd do it in a standard Web forms project, I can hardly call this style ASP.NET Web forms).
Unless you are working on a very data centric app and need server controls with databinding and viewstate, I would go with MVC.
I haven't made anything serious in web form since MVC preview 2. MVC is much better with regard to design patterns and best practices.
And yes IMO TDD is very important and gives more than 1 point to MVC.
Usually, the decision to use WebForms or MVC boils down to controls. If you are going to be using a lot of server-side controls, then WebForms is for you. If you don't have that burden then MVC, at least in my opinion, is much cleaner, and more testable.
After using both of them the way I decide now is: Do I need to use server controls? If I don't then I default to MVC.
If you were stuck with WebForms for some reason then you could implement the MVP (Model-View-Presenter) pattern to separate the view from the logic and have some hope of unit-testing the codebehind.
I just listened to the StackOverflow team's 17th podcast, and they talked so highly of ASP.NET MVC that I decided to check it out.
But first, I want to be sure it's worth it. I already created a base web application (for other developers to build on) for a project that's starting in a few days and wanted to know, based on your experience, if I should take the time to learn the basics of MVC and re-create the base web application with this model.
Are there really big pros that'd make it worthwhile?
EDIT: It's not an existing project, it's a project about to start, so if I'm going to do it it should be now...
I just found this
It does not, however, use the existing post-back model for interactions back to the server. Instead, you'll route all end-user interactions to a Controller class instead - which helps ensure clean separation of concerns and testability (it also means no viewstate or page lifecycle with MVC based views).
How would that work? No viewstate? No events?
If you are quite happy with WebForms today, then maybe ASP.NET MVC isn't for you.
I have been frustrated with WebForms for a really long time. I'm definitely not alone here. The smart-client, stateful abstraction over the web breaks down severely in complex scenarios. I happen to love HTML, Javascript, and CSS. WebForms tries to hide that from me. It also has some really complex solutions to problems that are really not that complex. Webforms is also inherently difficult to test, and while you can use MVP, it's not a great solution for a web environment...(compared to MVC).
MVC will appeal to you if...
- you want more control over your HTML
- want a seamless ajax experience like every other platform has
- want testability through-and-through
- want meaningful URLs
- HATE dealing with postback & viewstate issues
And as for the framework being Preview 5, it is quite stable, the design is mostly there, and upgrading is not difficult. I started an app on Preview 1 and have upgraded within a few hours of the newest preview being available.
It's important to keep in mind that MVC and WebForms are not competing, and one is not better than the other. They are simply different tools. Most people seem to approach MVC vs WebForms as "one must be a better hammer than the other". That is wrong. One is a hammer, the other is a screwdriver. Both are used in the process of putting things together, but have different strengths and weaknesses.
If one left you with a bad taste, you were probably trying to use a screwdriver to pound a nail. Certain problems are cumbersome with WebForms that become elegant and simple with MVC, and vice-versa.
I have used ASP.NET MVC (I even wrote a HTTPModule that lets you define the routes in web.config), and I still get a bitter taste in my mouth about it.
It seems like a giant step backwards in organization and productivity. Maybe its not for some, but I've got webforms figured out, and they present no challenge to me as far as making them maintainable.
That, and I don't endorse the current "TEST EVERYTHING" fad...
ASP.NET MVC basically allows you to separate the responsibility of different sections of the code. This enable you to test your application. You can test your Views, Routes etc. It also does speed up the application since now there is no ViewState or Postback.
BUT, there are also disadvantages. Since, you are no using WebForms you cannot use any ASP.NET control. It means if you want to create a GridView you will be running a for loop and create the table manually. If you want to use the ASP.NET Wizard in MVC then you will have to create on your own.
It is a nice framework if you are sick and tired of ASP.NET webform and want to perform everything on your own. But you need to keep in mind that would you benefit from creating all the stuff again or not?
In general I prefer Webforms framework due to the rich suite of controls and the automatic plumbing.
I would create a test site first, and see what the team thinks, but for me I wouldn't go back to WebForms after using MVC.
Some people don't like code mixed with HTML, and I can understand that, but I far prefer the flexibility over things like Page Lifecycle, rendering HTML and biggy for me - no viewstate cruft embedded in the page source.
Some people prefer MVC for better testibility, but personally most of my code is in the middle layer and easily tested anyway...
#Juan Manuel Did you ever work in classic ASP? When you had to program all of your own events and "viewstatish" items (like a dropdown recalling its selected value after form submission)?
If so, then ASP.NET MVC will not feel that awkward off the bat. I would check out Rob Conery's Awesome Series "MVC Storefront" where he has been walking through the framework and building each expected component for a storefront site. It's really impressive and easy to follow along (catching up is tough because Rob has been reall active and posted A LOT in that series).
Personally, and quite contrary to Jeff Atwood's feelings on the topic, I rather liked the webform model. It was totally different than the vbscript/classic ASP days for sure but keeping viewstate in check and writing your own CSS friendly controls was enjoyable, actually.
Then again, note that I said "liked". ASP.NET MVC is really awesome and more alike other web technologies out there. It certainly is easier to shift from ASP.NET MVC to RAILS if you like to or need to work on multiple platforms. And while, yes, it is very stable obviously (this very site), if your company disallows "beta" software of any color; implementing it into production at the this time might be an issue.
#Jonathan Holland I saw that you were voted down, but that is a VERY VALID point. I have been reading some posts around the intertubes where people seem to be confusing ASP.NET MVC the framework and MVC the pattern.
MVC in of itself is a DESIGN PATTERN. If all you are looking for is a "separation of concerns" then you can certainly achieve that with webforms. Personally, I am a big fan of the MVP pattern in a standard n-tier environment.
If you really want TOTAL control of your mark-up in the ASP.NET world, then MVC the ramework is for you.
If you are a professional ASP.NET developer, and have some time to spare on learning new stuff, I would certainly recommend that you spend some time trying out ASP.NET MVC. It may not be the solution to all your problems, and there are lots of projects that may benefit more from a traditional webform implementation, but while trying to figure out MVC you will certainly learn a lot, and it might bring up lots of ideas that you can apply on your job.
One good thing that I noticed while going through many blog posts and video tutorials while trying to develop a MVC pet-project is that most of them follow the current best practices (TDD, IoC, Dependency Injection, and to a lower extent POCO), plus a lot of JQuery to make the experience more interesting for the user, and that is stuff that I can apply on my current webform apps, and that I wasn't exposed in such depth before.
The ASP.NET MVC way of doing things is so different from webforms that it will shake up a bit your mind, and that for a developer is very good!
OTOH for a total beginner to web development I think MVC is definitely a better start because it offers a good design pattern out of the box and is closer to the way that the web really works (HTML is stateless, after all). On MVC you decide on every byte that goes back and forth on the wire (at least while you don't go crazy on html helpers). Once the guy gets that, he or she will be better equipped to move to the "artificial" facilities provided by ASP.NET webforms and server controls.
If you like to use server controls which do a lot of work for you, you will NOT like MVC because you will need to do a lot of hand coding in MVC. If you like the GridView, expect to write one yourself or use someone else's.
MVC is not for everyone, specially if you're not into unit testing the GUI part. If you're comfortable with web forms, stay with it. Web Forms 4.0 will fix some of the current shortcomings like the ID's which are automatically assigned by ASP.NET. You will have control of these in the next version.
Unless the developers you are working with are familiar with MVC pattern I wouldn't. At a minimum I'd talk with them first before making such a big change.
I'm trying to make that same decision about ASP.NET MVC, Juan Manuel. I'm now waiting for the right bite-sized project to come along with which I can experiment. If the experiment goes well--my gut says it will--then I'm going to architect my new large projects around the framework.
With ASP.NET MVC you lose the viewstate/postback model of ASP.NET Web Forms. Without that abstraction, you work much more closely with the HTML and the HTTP POST and GET commands. I believe the UI programming is somewhat in the direction of classic ASP.
With that inconvenience, comes a greater degree of control. I've very often found myself fighting the psuedo-session garbage of ASP.NET and the prospect of regaining complete control of the output HTML seems very refreshing.
It's perhaps either the best--or the worst--of both worlds.
5 Reasons You Should Take a Closer Look at ASP.NET MVC
I dont´t know ASP.NET MVC, but I am very familiar with MVC pattern. I don´t see another way to build professional applications without MVC. And it has to be MVC model 2, like Spring or Struts. By the way, how you people were building web applications without MVC? When you have a situation that some kind of validation is necessary on every request, as validating if user is authenticated, what is your solution? Some kind of include(validate.aspx) in every page?
Have you never heard of N-Tier development?
Ajax, RAD (webforms with ajax are anti-RAD very often), COMPLETE CONTROL (without developing whole bunch of code and cycles). webforms are good only to bind some grid and such and not for anything else, and one more really important thing - performance. when u get stuck into the web forms hell u will switch on MVC sooner or later.
I wouldn't recommend just making the switch on an existing project. Perhaps start a small "demo" project that the team can use to experiment with the technology and (if necessary) learn what they need to and demonstrate to management that it is worthwhile to make the switch. In the end, even the dev team might realize they aren't ready or it's not worth it.
Whatever you do, be sure to document it. Perhaps if you use a demo project, write a postmortem for future reference.
I dont´t know ASP.NET MVC, but I am very familiar with MVC pattern. I don´t see another way to build professional applications without MVC. And it has to be MVC model 2, like Spring or Struts. By the way, how you people were building web applications without MVC? When you have a situation that some kind of validation is necessary on every request, as validating if user is authenticated, what is your solution? Some kind of include(validate.aspx) in every page?
No, you shouldn't. Feel free to try it out on a new project, but a lot of people familiar with ASP.NET webforms aren't loving it yet, due to having to muck around with raw HTML + lots of different concepts + pretty slim pickings on documentation/tutorials.
Is the fact that ASP.net MVC is only in 'Preview 5' be a cause for concern when looking into it?
I know that StackOverflow was created using it, but is there a chance that Microsoft could implement significant changes to the framework before it is officially out of beta/alpha/preview release?
If you are dead set on using an MVC framework, then I would rather set out to use Castle project's one...
When that's said I personally think WebControls have a lot of advantages, like for instance being able to create event driven applications which have a stateful client and so on. Most of the arguments against WebControls are constructed because of lack of understanding the WebControl model etc. And not because they actually are truly bad...
MVC is not a Silver Bullet, especially not Microsoft MVC...
I have seen some implementation of MVC framework where for the sake of testability, someone rendered the whole HTML in code. In this case the view is also a testable code. But I said, my friend, putting HTML in code is a maintenance nightmare and he said well I like everything compiled and tested. I didn't argue, but later found that he did put this HTML into resource files and the craziness continued...
Little did he realized that the whole idea of separating View also solved the maintenance part. It outweighs the testability in some applications. We do not need to test the HTML design if we are using WYSWYG tool. WebForms are good for that reason.
I have often seen people abusing postback and viewstate and blaming it on the ASP .NET model.
Remember the best webpages are still the .HTMLs and that's where is the Power of ASP .NET MVC.