Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
I know you can use several different view engines with ASP.NET MVC:
ASPX, obviously
NVelocity
Brail
NHaml
et al...
The default ASPX view engine seems to make the most sense to me, coming from an ASP.NET WebForms background.
But, I wanted to get an idea of the pros and cons of each and see what most people are using.
Which does StackOverflow use?
I use Spark. It has nice flow between HTML and code. Scott Hanselman also did a post on it with his weekly source code review posts. I am really digging it a lot. One of the major features is pre-compilation of your views.
"Which does StackOverflow use?"
Web Forms.
I asked Jeff Atwood about his decision on his Tag Soup post. He didn't reply - I think he was busy hunting down a missing closing tag ;-)
NHaml is my favorite for its terseness. People either love it or hate it, given that it looks very different from a traditional "HTML with inserted code" template system like ASPX or NVelocity.
Edit:
#Ben,
There are other view engines which compile down (NHaml is one), so those do support custom HTML helpers. I wouldn't be surprised to see the currently interpreted view engines all eventually end up with a compilation model eventually.
Microsoft has recently announced a new view engine: Razor.
Looks pretty interesting:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/07/02/introducing-razor.aspx
Most people on the planet will just use ASPX because that's what they know. Another excellent benefit is the compiled-nature... so you not only get type-safety and intellisense, but you can get the perf benefit as well.
The drawback that I see is that it's so flippin' verbose. I converted an app to NVelocity and was astounded at how clean it looked. The problem is that there were a lot of things that didn't work with NVelocity (like your own custom view helpers) and there was a severe lack of documentation.
I added a feature to MvcContrib where you can register your own HtmlExtension types to it, but it's more of a bandaid until a better solution comes out.
I've used NVelocity in the past. For the most part it makes the code really clean and simple to follow; however, it normally ends up just being a few ViewData variables which have been filled up by XSLT files before hand. So I guess really my View Engine would be both XSLT (which is a love/hate thing - Extension Methods make it really useful) and NVelocity.
I've used NVelocity with MonoRail for some time but have recently switched to Spark for both Asp.Net MVC and MonoRail. The syntax seems very natural to me, but I guess that's to be expected. ;)
Related
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 9 years ago.
Improve this question
I've been in some discussions lately and the talk is about moving over to ASP.NET MVC and Knockout for future work on a product that is currently ASP.NET web forms. This product has many of the characteristics of the general current definition of a SPA.
I've never quite seen how MVC actually fits in when you start generating all your views with JS view models which get their data from calls to JSON web services.
Is there a "sweet spot" that leverages the best parts of Knockout w/JS models and JSON and the MVC framework?
Here are some things that I've been thinking about this (a little random - just seeing if I can spur on some discussion/answers):
When would you use Knockout vs. Razor? Knockout generates the view elements at run time on the client browser. Razor runs as part of the server request before the client receives the response. Are there times that one is clearly better than the other or does it come down to personal taste?
Is there value in keeping more code under the guise of C#/Razor for the purpose of code completion? Also, when exceptions get thrown, stack tracing to compiled code seems easier than JS debugging.
Is it better to completely separate the view from the back-end by creating a blank ASP.NET application and an independent Web API project?
Lots of great questions, I'll share some of my thoughts on the subjects. (Questions have been paraphrased):
1) Is there a place for MVC in a Knockout world? - Absolutely. MVC is a lot more than just Razor. Server side routing, Areas, Authentication, and more, are all provided by MVC. So in my mind, I can still use MVC for all the "admin and organization" but still have all my Views be primarily (but not necessarily completely) AJAX driven. I have discussed using MVC and KO together on SO before. I also have a video dedicated to that topic at WintellectNOW dot com.
2) When should I use Razor? - Let's actually switch up the terminology. It really isn't about Razor vs. Knockout: it's really about server-side vs. client-side rendering.
So when should you use server-side rendering? One ideal time for this is when you are loading data that only has to be done once when the page is initialized. For example, if you have a list of States for a drop down, and that list is extremely unlikely to change, go ahead and load that on the server side. Why turn around and make another request back to an API in that case? I would reserve those calls for dynamic or context sensitive data.
3) Is there value in keeping more code in C# for tooling purposes? - IMHO, no. It's true that debugging JS can be painful, but that is not enough justification for me to disregard all the awesome things I can do client side. It's worth the occasional frustration to provide a better user experience.
4) Should I move Web API to a different project to keep the code separate. - It completely depends on the needs of the project. If the Web API project is going to service multiple applications, then YES it should be in a separate project. That will also put it on a separate DOMAIN, SUB, PORT, or something to differentiate it from the rest of the Web app. Doing so introduces Cross Origin Resources Sharing (CORS) issues. CORS is a particular hell I wouldn't go through unless absolutely necessary. If your Web API is only going to service your single web app, do yourself a favor and keep it in the same project.
As with everything else, a lot of this comes down to personal preference. Mine is to use Server side for managing the bigger picture of my app, and client side for all the UI/UX.
It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, visit the help center.
Closed 9 years ago.
I have been working as WinForm (C#) Developer since Aug 2010. Now, I am planning to migrate into Asp.net MVC (C#). I have been learning MVC with http://www.asp.net/mvc for last 10 days. But I found that it only emphasizes on razor technology over ASPX. I just want to clear doubt that Do you use Razor technology in your MVC Project over ASPX. Please also mention other stuff I should learn (or from where) to be an Asp.net MVC Developer (Good & Employed).
Thank you,
Aman
Welcome to StackOverflow (SO)
Razor is simply a template engine, meaning that you write a string and put placeholders in it to be filled by some data. Razor is really easy to use, thus:
hello #name
in Razor would be:
hello <%= name %>
in ASP default inline statements. Thus yeah, many developers recently prefer Razor.
If you want to become a good ASP.NET MVC developer, I suggest to follow these topics as starting point:
Filters
HTML Helpers
Razor Syntax
ViewBag, ViewData, and TempData
Routes
of course, these suggestions need you to know ASP.NET, and MVC, and many more stuff as prerequisites.
Using Razor is indeed a more effective approach then to use ASPX-page markup.
Razor is simpler and cleaner. With "cleanness" comes a better code-walk capabilities. In aspx we had a lot of syntactical junk on the way, and a developer's intention to alter or get to know the code were "wearing off" more quicky.
With Razor, you see a much broader picture of a page's view at a glance.
Razor is not the core of being a good ASP.NET developer though.
The following may be a subjective optinon, but as soon as you realize how web server (ports, urls, routing), Controllers, Views and JSON data fromat tick together, as soon as you are able to quickly parse server-generated JSON model on the client with KnockoutJS or other MVVM framework, making your pages go "alive", you are becoming a developer who can create a web site on his own. You should specialize in something, no doubt, but to be a good developer, you need fully understand how Microsoft Stack of web technologies ticks.
Aman As far as Razor over ASPX concerns, I say yes Razor is widely used in industry and as you are beginner in ASP.NET MVC, I suggest to learn MVC 4. You can get more info on MVC 4 from http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc4 and here is article series covering new feature in MVC 4 http://www.dotnetexpertguide.com/2011/09/aspnet-mvc-4-article-series.html
I have read 3 books on ASP.NET MVC and 2 books on the Entity Framework. I have been developing in MVC 3 since it was released. Absolutely the best resource I have found is Scott Allen's training courses on ASP.NET MVC 3 on http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/aspdotnet-mvc3-intro Scott really knows his stuff.
This isnt just your typical canned developer training that is read from a script by a voice actor. Scott really knows web development and he shares some great inside tips on programming MVC 3. His C# stuff on http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/csharp-fundamentals is also very good. No, I do not work for pluralsight, I am just a happy pluralsight.com subscriber.
You must know HTML, CSS, jQuery and JavaScript in order to be an effective and productive MVC 3 developer. Go to http://www.w3schools.com/ and do all of the tutorials on those subjects.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
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.
Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
This question does not appear to be about programming within the scope defined in the help center.
Closed 9 years ago.
Improve this question
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/
Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 6 years ago.
Improve this question
Is it ready for that?
I've been playing with it for a short amount of time and it seems quite reasonable. Is anyone using it for live sites?
any issues to be aware of?
Well, stackoverflow.com is.
Yes, this one.
Yes, www.jobtree.com.au is. I also have another new site coming online in the next few days www.afterkickoff.com/football that is using it.
http://weblogs.asp.net/mikebosch/archive/2008/05/05/gallery-of-live-asp-net-mvc-sites.aspx
We are using it on Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's Pre-Raphaelite collection online and we are really happy with the results. Also using Silverlight deepzoom which we customised..
I think StackOverflow, itself, is built on ASP.NET MVC. Just read this: http://haacked.com/archive/2008/09/15/stackoverflow-at-pdc.aspx
You should take a look at how to make ASP.NET MVC work on the specific version of IIS your're planning to use. There's a whole page on the topic (Using ASP.NET MVC with Different Versions of IIS) on http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/tutorial-08-vb.aspx
I've been using ASP.NET MVC in production on several sites since Preview 2, and it has got progressively better with each release.
One issue to be aware of with the latest release (Preview 5) is that there is a bug in the VirtualPathProviderViewEngine that can cause the wrong view to be rendered if you run in production mode (with <compilation debug="false" />). See this post on the MVC forums for more info.
Remember that asp.net MVC is built on top of a solid asp.net/.net foundation which is already well proven and you can mix the technologies if you choose. I've used it without any problems besides the learning curve.
My only note is that currently, 3rd party control vendors like Telerik, ComponentArt etc don't really work well with MVC.
Stackoverflow uses ASP.Net MVC. Seems to be doing pretty well here from my experience with the site.
I don't have any completed sites written in ASP.NET MVC, but I have one in the works and a few others in mind that would be ideal in MVC.
The product is solid and you can expect to continue to see development in the coming months. The only concern you should be aware of is that the code is likely going to change. Though I'm sure that it's starting to stabilize, you should expect to update your code to accommodate those changes.
Yeah we recently finished a site with MonoRail and have our own proprietary MVC framework for content generation too.
We just deployed www.homespothq.com using ASP.NET MVC. I am very pleased with how it is working.
I'm using ASP.NET-MVC on a high volume private site and it has performed quite well. The separation of components with this architectural approach is very appealing.