I have read several other posts here, so i get the idea on the pro vs. cons, especially having full control over the rendered html code etc. (in MVC).
My question is regarding the UI controls: In MVC, i will have to write all UI controls myself (or the html equivalent). Now is that not going to be very difficult?
The reason why these 3rd party vendors for asp.net are there is just because of the fact that it is difficult to write UI controls for ASP.NET all by ourselves, and be able to target to all web browsers, and also that we are better off concentrating our time on the business logic rather than spending the whole lot of time writing the UI controls HTML code ourselves.
I understand that this feature gets us the full control over the final html, but is it not counter-productive to do this UI bit ourselves. If it was so easy to write them ourselves, how come these 3-rd party vendors are all living now. We could have done this all by ourselves all these years of WebForms days.
I am sure i am missing something here or being a little stupid, but please enlighten me as to what i am missing in specific regard to the UI bit being written by ourselves.
Just because i get full control over the program by writing in IL code, do we go and do that? We still use C# and things like that - So that theory of "having full control over html" - i am not bought into that idea.
Please help in getting my head around this UI bit.
Other things i understand, about the separation of concern, TDD based development possible with MVC etc.
But why would i go around writing the UI controls all by myself - it is a bit a work isn't it?
The thing is:
If you want to master in web development you have to master HTML + CSS + Javascript
And with WebForms you have to learn the WebForms way to do it, but with MVC you have the power of .Net with the freedom to generate the HTML + CSS + Javascript you want.
Here's a new rant on the subject http://www.charliedigital.com/PermaLink,guid,6dcb0333-9d70-40c7-975b-0ff4011c4661.aspx
Problem is, ASP.NET MVC is much younger product than ASP.NET. For many years 3rd party companies have been developing TONS of reusable components, and I believe that it is only a matter of time before comparable set of controls will be available for ASP.NET MVC.
If you really need very rich GUI with 3rd party controls, and you can't rewrite them in acceptable time - stick with asp.net. Altough in my opinion, MVC gives you tons of power it wouldn't be wise to spend much more time rewriting controls than you can save. If you can live without controls, and like MVC concepts - use MVC, and you'll most certainly see 3rd party solutions as soon as they'll there is growing market (maybe thay've already noticed that, I don't know) for mvc extensions.
I believe that the UI and the user experience are vital to the success of a web app. Making the page intuitive and easy to use, minimizing the amount of navigation the user has to do to get the job done, and providing effective feedback and interactivity can make all the difference between a site that users want to use and one that they avoid.
If you are trying to attract users on a public website, a pleasing appearance and excellent usability are key to building repeat visits.
If you are writing an intranet app to be used by hundreds or thousands of employees all day long -- as I mostly do -- making the UI efficient and easy to use really means a lot to your users.
So, I wouldn't downplay the importance of the UI. It isn't a nuisance. It's a key part of the user experience. I suggest that a web developer should embrace whatever tools and strategies that will get the job done. That often means coding the UI controls yourself. Or working with a teammate who likes doing that part of the work.
I recently refactored a very complex website using ASP.NET + handworked javascript to MVC + jQuery. The complexity of the code was reduced by 50%-75% and became much more testable. I replaced all the complex webcontrols I had to write (with a steep learning curve I had to overcome) with very simple HtmlHelper methods.
Don't forget, when you use custom webcontrols, you are given a very static UI by the control developer. With raw HTML, you can take advantage of styles and ui developed by the whole web industry.
Increased simplicity, decreased development time, testability, flexibility in UI... I don't want to go back.
You also have to remember that ASP.NET MVC is just the first release. I don't think there is intrinsically any reason why you couldn't have the equivalent of server controls to enable certain tasks - remember, there are many server controls that don't generate any mark-up (such as the Repeater, PlaceHolder, ListView). These type of controls could be useful in a future MVC setting, I think.
I believe that ASP.net came around when lots of developers were still used to doing desktop applications and just beginning web development. AT that point in time abstracting the details of the web with controls and post backs was a great way to get people started. At that point we weren't trying to perfect the web, we just wanted to get on it!
Now that the web has matured and we've all slowly learned about html, css, javascript and the likes we want to optimize our websites for our own needs and we don't want to depend on ASP.net Forms controls to control the fine details of our websites.
In summary, I think this is about the natural evolution of many developers from the desktop to the web
I for one, am very thankful that you cannot use ASP.NET controls in MVC.
Controls, as many have already pointed out, are just server side blocks of code that render HTML and javascript on your behalf. Things like a datagrid are great, until someone asks you to make a slight modification, like having a delete confirmation alert, and then it seems impossible to do certain tasks.
The good news is that there are very powerful jQuery tools written to help you. jQgrid is a great grid replacement that does WAY more than the ASP.NET grid...
http://www.trirand.com/blog/
jsTree is a treeview that is fantastic. Again with the jQuery....
http://www.jstree.com/
And the truth is that most things you can do with razor, HTML, javascript and CSS. It's so simple that it's just stupid.
It's hard for people like myself who were web forms developers to grasp MVC and why you should use it because it's so simple. It's difficult to let go of the complexity of conventional ASP.NET. But it feels so good when you do.
And don't mix web forms with MVC. You can do it, but you will wish you hadn't.
Here is the key thing that I think you are missing. When ASP.NET is no longer the MS way of doing things...you will eventually be forced to move on and do something else. I have programmed in perl, ASP classic, then ColdFusion, then PHP, then ASP.NET web forms, then ASP.NET MVC...the only thing that they all have in common is the underlying database, design patterns, best practices for a given set of technology AND...HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Photoshop.
No one is asking you to learn MVC. No one is telling you to not use WebForms. However, complaining that you have to write a raw UI is not going to get you very far in this industry. You should be learning something new every day...and it sounds like some time spent on HTML and CSS would be a great place to start your focus!
The biggest problem you have with relying on third party controls is when a client asks you to do something that the third party controls don't cover. If you can't replicate their complexity plus the added feature request on your own you are skirting a possible failure in your professional livelihood! You will need to know how to do it all...eventually!
I generally suggest that you embrace new technologies. You don't have to use them...but you should at least know how. This way you will know what the best tool is for any given project.
I've been wondering - what's an equivalent of 'control' from webforms in asp.net mvc? It's not a partial view for sure. What else it can be? Controller + partial views via partial requests?
Maybe i'm dumb, blind or both, but i haven't seen any 'control' for asp.net mvc. Just a lot of code snippets to accomplish one specific thing or another.
I believe that asp.net mvc is quite unfriendly with rapid development. Only way out of this problem - a lot of open source code (like MvcContrib), tutorials, sample applications & most important - slightly smarter developers.
You do not have to replace Webforms controls with something else from MVC. Just mix them - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PlugInHybridsASPNETWebFormsAndASPMVCAndASPNETDynamicDataSideBySide.aspx
Well, I was also wondering how to use 3rd party controls in ASP.NET MVC. Obviously, and contrary to some answers here, it had to be possible.
As much time has passed since the question was asked, the industry has evolved. So I've searched and found (but havent' yet tested) solutions such as Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC .
I'm posting this answer here mainly to support other MVC newbees such as myself - Just Google
"asp.net mvc" controls
Related
What were typical problems during developing on ASP.NET? So, would you like to describe typical problems/mistakes during developing on ASP.NET from your experience?
UPD
I have been working as ASP.NET developer for 2 monthes.
The biggest mistake in my opinion is that many people do not take the time to learn and understand the framework before they begin coding. This often leads to solutions that do not follow the intentions/paradigm of the framework.
My biggest issue was the page lifecycle. When you start adding Masterpages & user controls, it gets a bit tricker figuring out what happens and in what order
When you say ASP.NET I'm assuming you mean WebForms.
The biggest problems are related to DataBinding, event handling, viewstate and control id's. These concepts are entangled in complex ways that start to break down whenever you take even a single step outside the beaten paths.
WebForms was built to provide a similar experience to web development as to desktop UI development. After years of ASP.NET WebForms development experience I think I can safely say that WinForms does not live up to the promise. The attempt to hide web specific concepts (like the fact that HTTP is stateless) means that you as developer loose a lot of control, which makes it hard to figure out what the problem is when something does not work as you'd expect.
For anyone starting .NET-based web development I suggest you get intimate with more modern web development platforms like the ASP.NET MVC or MonoRail. The initial learning curve may be a bit steeper but when you get rolling you'll be much more productive.
Most of the asp.net web forms problem has been overcome by asp.net mvc framework. The problem in web forms were many. The biggest i feel is it has only one form. others are misuse of viewstate, which later overcome by control state. Web form has complex page life cycle specially if you are dynamically adding user controls etc.
On the other hand i see no problem in asp.net mvc framework.
I think most common mistakes on developing not only in Asp.net is that when you try to study something or just a part of it and feel like you need to stop because you think you know everything which is obviously wrong. For me Asp.net is like the world because when you know the continent of Asia,Europe,etc. it doesn't mean that you need to stop because you already know a lot of things. I think it's not that way because Asp.net have so many capabilities that every developer can explore like me who is also still studying and when you learn something, like me most of the time I say hey I never thought this exist in the map of Asp.net and again I say hey you know what I learn something new, I wonder if my previous project applies to what I learn today. Things like that, I learn in every step and the ladder never ends.
I think making a statement about your background/experience and knowledge of Http, Html etc. might help people give a better, more meaningful response.
Typical problem #1: Master pages. Coming from classic ASP, this concept was new to me so I learned how to use it properly in "the hard way". In the beginning I tried to change things defined in the master page from within content pages which is obviously wrong.
Typical problem #2: User Controls. The classic ASP does have "include" mechanism allowing the programmer to put repetitive blocks of code so I was familiar with the basic concept, but combining it with existing Page, learning the different life cycle and understanding the real power of the custom controls took long time and many bumps on the road.
From my point of view,the biggest problem in considered to the state management.
The people often get confused what to use on a particular situation.
Next one is most of don't know about the page life cycle well.which is most important during custom controls and all.
And the most important thing is new comers often don't know how to actually indulge oops concepts while software development..
I'm a new comer to the asp.net world. I hear a lot about asp.net mvc and it's advantage over webforms about the ability to customize the markup and css. I also heard that asp.net is much easier to learn than asp.net mvc so I decided to go for asp.net and webforms. My question is: what's the level of customization a web developer/designer can get with webforms concerning the markup and css?
You can have as much customisation as you like in the html output! You can customise everything in web forms. However, with customisation brings time, effort and room for error. All of these things is what web forms is trying to save you.
However, since you are just starting out I wouldn't worry. Just make your web forms how you want and forget the customisation of output (it is much better with ASP.NET 4 anyway). In a few years when you are more experienced then worry.
If you were going to customise everything then you should have gone with ASP.NET MVC - it is one of its main arguments. But there is nothing wrong with web forms. Particularly if you are beginning with asp.net in general I'd say it is better.
Standard ASP.NET WebForms uses server controls that generate the markup for you, so the level of customization is limited to what the controls you are using provide. There are techniques that allow you to override what is rendered by the controls and thus customize the markup and also write your own controls but it requires some coding. It is possible to achieve almost complete customization of the markup but it IMHO requires more efforts than a web developer should need to put into something like this.
While it is definitely possible to have a SEO friendly, unit-testable, maintanable, standards compliant application using classic ASP.NET WebForms, the efforts it requires will be significant compared to ASP.NET MVC. But if you don't care about those things you will be able to pretty quickly develop web applications.
ASP.NET comes with a set of built in user controls - things like text areas, buttons etc. These mimic winforms in how they are supposed to work (events etc), however this is a rather leaky abstraction (you must always remember you are working with HTML and HTTP).
The user controls allow reuse and when a page is built they emit HTML - you have little control over the emitted HTML (unless you override the rendering, which kinda defeats the point), hence the perception that they are harder to customize. It is not easy to get right either and requires more work than I think is worth.
There are also different compromises in the way pages are rendered out (ids for example end up as a long string of concatenated container control names) which make MVC a better choice if you are looking for control over your HTML.
Microsoft suggests that you pick the technology based on your needs:
While ASP.NET offers rich controls and produces quick results without great control over the markup (as mentioned: it can be done but somehow beats the idea behind ASP.NET and creates a lot of additional code), it suffers from the flaws mentioned by the other posters.
In MVC, there is a limited set of "out-of-the-box" controls and you'll have to code more on your own (including clientside JavaScript) but you do have more control over the rendered markup of your controls. In addition to that, your project will generally have a clean separation of concerns which benefits (unit) testing and maintainance.
Another aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet: In ASP.NET a page undergoes the so-called "ASP.NET Lifecycle" every time the client communicates with the server. The Lifecycle consists of several events that are fired in a special (and sometimes confusing) order. Handling those event in the right order in complex web applications is one of the biggest difficulties in ASP.NET and often leads beginners to forfeit. In MVC you don't have to deal with that kind of problem.
Therefore I strongly recommend that you take a look at the ASP.NET architecture before you start to code. Here is a very basic start: http://www.asp.net/learn/videos/video-6558.aspx
Personally, I started with WebForms and am now moving to MVC after I worked with the similar MVVM pattern in Silverlight and WPF for my bachelor thesis. This kind of did it for me so that I now understand the benefits and ideas behind MVC a lot better. Once you are used to WebForms, switching won't be that easy though.
I know this question has been asked before and I read all the answers but they still don't give me the answers I am looking for. I need something concrete. I volunteered to give a presentation on MVC to other developers in our group which forces me to learn it. The big question everyone has is: "What can MVC bring to the table that we can't do in asp.net or MVC can do faster. I have just gone through Nerd Dinner and actually created a complete website that sort of mimics Nerd Dinner. But as great a job that Scott Guthrie did on it, there are big gaps that aren't answered such as, how do I throw a textbox on the listing page with a button and do a simple search. In asp.net, I would throw a textbox, button and grid on the page and bind it to a sproc and away I go. What is the equivalent in MVC. I guess I need a really good tutorial on how to use MVC without using Linq-to-Sql.
I know I am sort of babbling on about this but it is a very serious question that still seems to go unanswered.
On a side note, the View page of MVC brings back nightmares of classic asp with all the in-line code that we got away from way back when with code behind pages. Yes, MVC has Controller and Model classes which are great but I still don't like the classic asp tags in the html.
Help me out here, I really like the concept of MVC and want it to be successful but I need more!
how do I throw a textbox on the listing page with a button and do a simple search. In asp.net, I would throw a textbox, button and grid on the page and bind it to a sproc and away I go
That's exactly the biggest problem behind "classic" ASP.NET aka WebForms.
You shouldn't be thinking in terms of pages, buttons and events.
You should learn the basics of how web works. Then you'd understand that the web speaks in terms of HTTP protocol, its commands GET, POST and others. Presentation is HTML, CSS and the Document Object Model which is where JavaScript comes into play. And there are in fact no pages, an url is just a pointer to a resource which is not necessarily mapped to a physical file (.html or .aspx) on the server.
the View page of MVC brings back nightmares of classic asp with all the in-line code that we got away from way back when with code behind pages.
I also came to MVC after staying with WebForms and I discovered I like the inline code very much. It makes the view structure very clear, which cannot be said about the coupling of static markup (aspx) + manipulating server controls in code-behind. The latter is actually a nightmare - your code is generating the markup output but you don't see where and how.
What can MVC bring to the table that we can't do in asp.net or MVC can do faster
It removes the ugly stateful abstraction which WebForms gave us. You're now back where it started. What you have now is:
Option to separate your presentation part (views) from your application logic. Before there was all mixed together, code-behind talking to the database, calling other services, modifying the markup. It was mess. It resulted in lots of serious applications written but hardly maintainable any more.
Ability to automatically test your application logic. With WebForms and code-behind, how would you invoke a certain scenario? You'd use tools like Selenium to mimic user activities. Now, when your views are just a passive presentation layer, you don't have this problem any more. You test your business logic and model output very easily. Views are there to display the results. If the model got the correct data in a particular scenario, the view will display it correctly. If not then not. Period. No need to test views.
Control over your markup. That is if you care. If you a former Windows developer who doesn't give a damn about HTML documents being valid, being semantically correct and optimized for web engines, then it's of no use to you. I mean, "pages" are sort of displayed, user clicks are processed like in desktop application, what else, right? But if you were interested in all those things, then you'd look at the final markup output and see that it is ugly, with lots of errors, limitations which you simply can't fix. Because it's how controls, buttons, data grids etc. display themselves. An attempt to fix them would require to override markup generation of those controls which is a heavy task. Why don't just drop it and do everything manually?
What MVC takes from the table?
A server-side processing of "control" "events", like in Windows programming. If you're developing a desktop-like application for web medium, like those typical "business" software with dozens and hundreds of controls to drive you crazy, then MVC will drive you crazy, because you will have to wire each single control individually with JavaScript.
But if you're not developing those kinds of applications (which require certain mental abilities to work with), but developing modern usable software for web, then WebForms would drive you crazy. Sooner or later.
I was also learning MVC in the past few days. My experience is that is provides a much less complicated model of the web.
While WebForms promised that it will make web development very close to Windows development with a complicated event model, controls, and all the stuff.
Why? Because at the time Microsoft's developer base was mostly VB and C++ developers who were thinking in terms of forms, controls, and this provided an easy way for them to begin developing for the web.
What MVC provides is more control over the underlying protocol and more control over the HTML you output.
Plus, they give you ASP.NET routing built-in, so your URLs will also look and feel much better.
An example: StackOverflow was built using ASP.NET MVC.
Your example:
how do I throw a textbox on the
listing page with a button and do a
simple search. In asp.net, I would
throw a textbox, button and grid on
the page and bind it to a sproc and
away I go.
You create an Action for it in the current Controller, throw a form on the page with Html.BeginForm which points to that action (remember, with MVC, you can have multiple forms on pages), throw a textbox and a submit button in it.
Then, according to your taste, you can either create a separate view for the search results, or reuse the existing view. The new action can be named the same as the old one, with [HttpPost] on it (or [HttpGet] if you prefer that), so the URL won't confuse the users more. You can then call your SPROC in your action and you are good to go.
(All this accomplishable in a matter of minutes.)
The other thing I like about MVC is that it is basically VERY EASY to create CRUD operations with it. (Like NerdDinner.)
VS generates 80% of the code required for your views, which then you can customise very easily.
I recommend you reading the whole book and not only the NerdDinner free episode, it gives you a very good picture about the technology.
The bulky Behind code is one the biggest issue with Webform. The RAD approach is good to create project faster but the growing bulky behind code is not maintainable , reusable and testable. There are 5 problems which MVC resolves of WebForm.
Problem 1 :- Webform was a View based solution for Action based requirement
Problem 2:- Tight coupling between behind code and view
Problem 3:- HTML is not the only response type in Webform it was not flexible
Problem 4:- Flexible Combination of view and data not possible with webforms
Problem 5:- Behind code was a heavy bulky class which can not be instantiated.
All the above points has been explained in this codeproject article http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/821275/Why-ASP-NET-MVC-ASP-NET-MVC-vs-ASP-NET-webforms
The following article got me started with MVC
ASP.NET web forms aren't going
anywhere. As much as I love ASP.NET
MVC, it is not the end-all-be-all
one-size-fits-all solution to web
development. Both of these approaches
have their rightful place in a web
developer's toolbox and it's important
to recognize their strengths and
weaknesses. In general, the ASP.NET
MVC framework tends to sacrafice
ease-of-use (e.g. viewstate,
validation, etc.) in order give
developers tighter control over the
reins. This can be a great thing, but
only if you take advantage of it.
Otherwise it can just as easily be a
hindrance.
With that in mind, I have developed a
quick metric to determine if ASP.NET
MVC is right for you. The way I see
it, there are three primary reasons a
developer should choose the ASP.NET
MVC framework over ASP.NET web forms.
If none of these reasons are
compelling to you, then you should
stick with ASP.NET web forms:
To Unit Test This, in my opinion, is
the most compelling reason to use
ASP.NET MVC. When it comes to unit
testing, ASP.NET MVC simply blows
ASP.NET web forms out of the water.
It's not even close. Whereas ASP.NET
web forms requires you to jump through
all sorts of hoops to test around the
page event lifecycle, the ASP.NET MVC
framework practically begs to be
tested. There are interfaces
everywhere screaming "mock me!".
There's a reason why the biggest
ASP.NET MVC supporters also tend to be
TDD proponents; it's because ASP.NET
MVC actually allows for TDD.
Personally, I think this is where all
the zeal comes from. Simply put: it's
really, really hard to do TDD with
ASP.NET web forms and really, really
easy to do it in ASP.NET MVC.
To Gain Control and Extensibility As
pointed out in the comments, ASP.NET
MVC gives you more control and
extensibility options than ASP.NET web
forms. You get complete control over
the page request lifecycle and the
ability to substitute out several key
pieces of the framework (e.g. view
engine, routing, etc.), none of which
is possible with ASP.NET web forms.
In addition to this, you also gain
full control over the rendered HTML.
In general, the rendered HTML from
ASP.NET web forms applications is
atrocious. The web controls it
utilizes generate garbage ids and
hidden fields galore that not only
hamper the performance of a site, but
also make CSS styling and Javascript
development a pain. ASP.NET MVC
forces you to be more in tune with
your HTML. There aren't any repeaters
or datagrids that magically generate
markup for you. There aren't any
hidden fields to persist state for
you. It's just you, the HTML, and a
few extension methods (which you don't
even have to use).
To Learn Something New In other words,
"because you feel like it". This was
actually why I started using ASP.NET
MVC. It never hurts to look at how
you're approaching development from
another angle.
I should also point out that learning
ASP.NET MVC is incredibly engaging
process since the ASP.NET MVC
framework team has been so interactive
in the process. I think a large part
of the appeal of ASP.NET MVC is that
the community's input is not only
being taken into consideration, it is
actively being sought after. The
framework has sparked so many
discussions and debates over best
practices that simply following along
introduces you to concepts you might
previously have been unaware of. I
would actually recommend learning the
ASP.NET MVC framework for this reason
alone. The threads on TDD, BDD, ORM,
AJAX, etc. you stumble across during
the learning process are worth it.
So there you have it. Aside from
those three, I can't think of any
other reasons why a developer would
learn ASP.NET MVC. Maybe this is why
the adoption rate isn't nearly as high
as we think it should be. The
incentive for using the framework
essentially boils down to unit
testing, control/extensibility, and
boredom/curiosity. Good reasons, to
be sure, but hardly game breakers for
the vast majority of developers out
there.
Control over the HTML output - is one thing. All those fancy controls SERIOUSLY SUCK from a SEO point of view.
Plus for COMPLEX forms, the ASP.NET state model is hell, too ;)
Anyhow, an example is your search box... it sucks ;)
I would use MVC like this:
Search is a URL:
/search/keyword
or
/search/keyword/pagenr (like /search/programming/5
Good thing is: I can easily have search results spidered by google - some sites I Know get most hits from something like that.
Is it harder to program than asp.net - depends whether you want efficient HTML or not. THe control model from ASP.NET does not lead to lean defined HTML somehow.
Besides that - MVC is a lot more testable. Unit testing a classical HTML site is pretty impossible, the decoupled model of MVC makes that easier.
I don't come from a Microsoft background, so I might be missing something strictly related to ASP.NET but MVC isn't something different than ASP.NET. MVC, or model-view-controller, is an architectural principal in software design that isn't strictly for the web. Graphical user interface applications commonly use this model.
Anyway, your question is dealing with the "why". The search listing page is a good example to start with. With MVC, you can use templates to only modify the visual aspects of the search (the view). You can add buttons and format what the controller gives you without having to make changes to the controller itself. Similarly, with a view you can change the logic of what is "given" to the view without actually changing the view. Finally, you can go from a relational database to an XML database and without having to worry about changing any of the other aspects of your program. The logic is separated cleanly and this pattern fits many use-cases.
I would highly recommend seeing the Wikipedia article on MVC. It may be easier to understand using a graphical user interface (GUI) example instead of a simple web based example.
Ryan
MVC is considered as an alternative to good old asp.net, not the next step. IMHO MVC has a clear advantage if you want to write unit tests for your pages.
But I don't agree that MVC adds anything to classic asp.net in the name of performance, code quality or productivity. You can achieve same performance with asp.net by shutting down viewstate when not necessary or you can be more in control of HTML output by using lightweight server controls. (Repeater instead of DataGrid for example.)
I ask this not to start anything negative. Rather, after looking at ASP.NET MVC it hit me (duh) that I am not using controls like on webforms but coding html markup by hand (gasp.)
Is this a move backwards? I remember coming from classic asp to asp.net and dragging and dropping controls, creating a bll, etc. now it seems I am doing all that by hand, again, like classic, except I have good mvc design.
I guess I'm trying to figure out why this is a move forwards from what was a rapid development environment to what appears to be more tedious.
EDIT:
I always thought Visual Studio .NET was one huge reason to go with ASP.NET with all its controls and automation. Now with MVC it is makes me think it's just like any other MVC with a decent IDE, since I'm doing everything by hand now.
"Classic" ASP.NET hasn't gone anywhere - you can still use it if that's what you want or need
Though you may or may not get "drag-and-drop" functionality, between AutoComplete and the various render helpers you can easily get a working view in minutes
Creating the views is only a small fraction of the overall project
Even in ASP.NET I rarely used the visual editor. I always felt that it got in my way and made decisions for me, wrongly.
Is a step forward:
the code is fully testable
you gain full control of what the server is generating
no more viewstate!
increased server response speed
less server cpu load without the WebForm's Page lifecicle
a programming model which is more close to the web (webforms aimed to bring to the web the desktop programming model).
....
Funny you should mention this - I just finished reading a chapter in "Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0" that answers this exact question.
The book they compare the difference between Web Forms and MVC as the difference between leading an orchestra and composing a song. MVC doesn't give you the same level of immediate response as web forms, however it does give you a level of granularity a lot of web developers have come to expect. It's well known that ASP.NET controls, even in their later versions, inject more HTML than is desired.
So, functionally yes it's a step back, but only because you've been given complete control over what gets put on the page. As always, pick the right language for the job.
It's a step sideways, rather than forwards or backwards; just another way of doing the same thing, with a different emphasis. With ASP.NET forms, it's easy to "draw" the page so it looks roughly like you want it to look, but it's hard to make it behave like a proper web application. With ASP.NET MVC, it's not as easy to throw together the appearance of it, but it's actually easier to make it behave like a website, with URLs that describe the content being returned in a predictable way.
Tell me about it. I'm still trying to work out why I'm subjecting myself to this. Ultimately the number #1 sell is Unit Testing. For those of us who don't subscribe to this, the advantages are few, if any, IMHO.
That said, I'm open to be convinced otherwise. I think that MVC is a good foundation, but like you say, it's very very tedious at times. The RAD system of drag/drop controls from the toolbox used to be terrible, but since vs2008 it's been quite a pleasure. I expect the major toolkit vendors like Telerik, Infragistics, ComponentOne et al will soon ship MVC friendly toolkits (I hope!).
I'm only learning it because I'm currently on a project that was built on it (not my design). Don't forget though that YOU DONT HAVE TO USE IT. Classic ASP.NET didn't disappear. :)
-Oisin
For me, getting rid of viewstate and the page life-cycle has been an addition by subtraction. :) Not to mention a boon to my knowledge of web programming because of having to get my hands "dirty".
Some people might say that ASP.Net was a step backwards in that it can constrain the flexibility of the application by locking you into using pre-built controls.
Classic ASP was immature, but it did give you very fine-grain control over the mark-up code, which many find is lacking in vanilla ASP.Net.
As I see it the ASP.Net MVC paradigm gives the developer closer control over mark-up, while still giving access to all of the advantages of the .Net framework.
I think it was a necessary step backwards, or better yet backtracking a few steps to move ahead.
The web had evolved in a direction that diverged significantly from ASP.NET's core design premise.
In the end, comparing ASP.NET to other agile web frameworks, I believe it was a case of "you can't get there from here".
I thought part of the point of the ASP.Net MVC Framework was giving the developer more control over the HTML. Something the drag-and-drop controls make a mess of.
ASP.net MVC is not for everyone or for every application (some may argue this through!). MVC is a framework you can use in its basic form or extend to your hearts content. It allows you full control over what is rendered to the user.
MVC has a number of advantages:
Seperation of concerns resulting in better testability, arguably better design and easier to modify UI
Full control over what is rendered - which can result in standards compliant, smaller, faster pages
Clearn SEO friendly URLs although ASP.net 4 has routing features
In its purest form without use of session load balances very well.
It also has some disadvantages:
Learning curve and change of thinking required
Lack of 3rd party support although this will change
Pages can look cluttered
Can be more difficult to develop certain types of controls e.g. something like a reorderable data grid or something with many steps like a wizard
I think it's a step in the right direction, but it's nowhere near as mature as WebForms. I expect to see commercial 'control' libraries before long, although it won't be drag and drop stuff.
Also, if you're using WebForms for your view engine you're missing the point, in my opinion.
One of the biggest differences is the page life cycle. This is for me the main paradigm change. Many other benefits could be addressed following good practices, although ASP.NET did not enforce them.
If you are used to WebForms and ASP.NET, MVC may seem awkward, but if you come from classic ASP, PHP, Rails o any other environment that respects the nature of the HTTP flow, its a good option. You get the benefits of a great IDE such as Visual Studio, a complete and powerful framework such as .NET (whether you use C# or VB.NET) and everything works in a more or less familiar way.
You may lose ASP.NET controls and visual designer but for many people that was more an annoyance than a benefit, depending on the type of applications you were building and your previous experience. ASP.NET was a nice transition from Winforms but for people who always worked on a web environment seemed a bit "forced".
Didn't Scott Hanselman at one point say that "MVC isn't Web Forms 4.0"? I've taken from that, that he means that MVC isn't to replace ASP .Net at all, and it is simply another option to Win Forms and Web Forms.
I do agree in that when I first started looking at MVC, I was much more reminded about classic ASP (not the .Net version) in the way that there's no code behind page, and there's more <%= whatever %> markup in the views, which threw me for a little while, as when I used ASP .Net for the first time, it was as though ASP .Net discouraged the need for such markup.
Personally, I like MVC; I think it's great, but there's a little room too for ASP .Net..!
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Let's say that you will start a new ASP.NET web site/application tomorrow. Would you chose Web Forms or MVC, and why?
MVC baby! And JQuery!
Edit: OK, it's fair enough to say my response warrants a little more info.
I'd choose MVC for the following reasons:
I have worked in Rails and found it highly productive. ASP MVC has borrowed so much from Rails that it feels like a direct port in some ways (and that's a good thing in my mind).
AJAX is important, but I hate the Microsoft "Atlas" approach to AJAX (whatever the product name is these days). If you're going to do AJAX, you need to understand the HTML and the JavaScript. Frameworks that hide that from you are hurting you more than they are helping you (IMO).
JQuery has taken over the world it seems in terms of JavaScript frameworks. ASPMVC is well-integrated with it. I want to learn it, so there's great alignment here.
The whole "control" model is a neat idea, but it is more complicated than it appears on the surface. For example, look around on SO for questions about how a UserControl can find its highest level containing control and so forth. The control hierarchy abstraction has leaks in it. Grids are great if they do what you want out of the box, but it's very very hard to customize them to do something they weren't made to do. And the best grid controls on the market (the ones that are highly customizable) are large, bloated, overly complicated beasts. Maybe that shows us that we should drop back down to HTML and let loops in our views do that kind of thing for us.
I believe I can build complete, beautiful apps in ASPMVC much faster than in ASP.Net (and I've got some years of ASP.Net under my belt). Look at StackOverflow ... built quickly on ASPMVC with JQuery, and it's fast, scalable and a joy to use IMO.
Oh, and it's completely open source! It is ok to read the source code, blog about it, and even modify then redistribute it!
I would choose MVC simply because it's designed to be testable and mock'able. That would be the major factor in my decision.
WebForms are much more difficult to Unit Test because they're rooted in several concrete classes that are difficult, it at all possible, to Mock. These include HttpContext, HttpResponse, HttpRequest and HttpCookie.
MVC is designed to be testable and it's API greatly facilitates doing so.
Good article on the testability of MVC: http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/aspnet/ASPNETMVCFrameworkPart2.aspx
Personally, I have decided to use both...
If it's a website (viewed online), I have decided to use ASP.NET MVC.
If it was an application (web application with a single purpose) I have decided to use web forms.
This decision is purely based on the case use and the solution you trying to deliver. If you are interested in good SEO and a faster website, MVC is much cleaner HTML and faster than web forms.
However if you after a complex functionality with a lot of filters, grids, postbacks on the same page and you are well experienced in Web Forms, just stick with it.
If I were starting today I would probably still stick with webforms because of the volume of knowledge and resources surrounding it.
That said I really want to give MVC a shot and as others have mentioned the excitement within the community means it wont take long before there is a lot of support for it.
MVC FTW!, Reasons?
Total Control over my HTML
No Web Forms magic
No complex page life-cycles
Closer to the metal
It is the natural thing to use with HTTP
Is MVC the "flavor of the day", or does it have staying power?
I have worked with MVC, and have a vast amount of webform experience. I often wonder about the staying power of MVC.
You should consider this when choosing one or the other. What do you want to support for the entire product lifespan?
I can't say which I'd really go with having not tried MVC yet. But I'd be a bit worried about using it for a really big enterprise project as yet.
Scroll through pass questions and you'll see that there a lots of questions/issues with MVC (compared to good o' WebForms that is). That alone has me worried. And a lot of the questions seems to be for special UI needs. Again having not tried it I don't know how mature it is yet but I'd still be a bit worried.
Maybe someone who has used it for an enterprise project can shed some light.
While MVC is the new kid on the block there are still a lot of benefits to designing with the Web Forms model.
Familiarity with the tool
consistency of look/feel with existing projects
Tooling/designer
Postbacks
Event driven
Controls to abstract
3rd party controls that work
Rapid development
Declaritive style
Rachel Appel did a great presentation at MIX on this very topic. You can view the video here:
Choosing between ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T23F
I would choose Webforms for local/intranet applications with rich business logic and MVC for public/internet site (blogs/forums/presentations/simple services). "WebForms application model" is preferable in areas where rich state support is critical
I have started a new Web site for our own product a week ago and I couldn't be happier with ASP.NET MVC. Everything seems natural, I always know where to go and look if something doesn't work or does not look the way I intended.
Frankly, the biggest chunk of time I've spent has been CSS. Coding, integration with jQuery... peanuts.
OTOH, if you are not experienced developer, ASP.NET will not appeal to you as it encourages you to go all the way and control all aspects of your site - HTML markup, CSS etc., which in turn means no controls, drag and drop visual editing etc.
Unlike traditional ASP.NET where you are left to yourself and often end up mixing all kinds of UI, persistence (DB) and business logic code in various pages, MVC will guide you and help you structure your app much more consistently. This will not sit with you if you don't like "opinionated" frameworks and/or just want to get the job done without caring about structure of the site, maintainability, scalability etc.
Note that it's perfectly possible not to care about this if all you're building is a one-off intranet site, but for public Internet site I'd choose MVC over classic ASP.NET every time.
MVC
... it just seems so obvious that's where the future is
In ASP.NET MVC you sacrifice your controls toolbox,
URL routing is already in ASP.NET (web forms)
So I would stick with ASP.NET web forms ( I'm not saying that MVC isn't good.)
jQuery, do you think the IT folks will let you use it?
ASP.NET MVC because I want to learn how to use it.
I would currently choose ASP.NET MVC for 2 reasons: 1) I want to learn to master it. 2) There is already a great community forming around ASP.NET MVC and everyone seems to have very positive entergy regarding it's use. I can't wait to see where it all ends up and I want to be part of it.
I would like to go with MVC. I always seam to be fighting the abstraction when I work with WebForms.
To use WebForms effectively you actually need to know more about how the web works than if you use something like PHP. I find myself using <asp:Literal instead of <asp:Label to avoid putting a <span> around the text and running labs to figure out the order of events, etc.
it really depends on the project, since i havent build anything with MVC and if the project has a short time delivery, i will probably find some hinders in MVC that could make me not to deliver the project in Time.
I wait for MVC on .net for a long time.
I think more than 90% people will choose MVC rather than webform.
If it was a personal project then I would use MVC. Just to learn more about it. If it was a project at work I would use WebForms, possibly in combination with DynamicData for the administrative parts. The reason is that I would be more productive with a technology I know, and using DynamicData for the administrative part would let me setup that part in minutes.
As always it depends upon the type of application you are developing and the individual circumstances. A lot of our internal applications are being developed in SharePoint as that is our internal platform of choice for intranet type applications.
This automatically limits us to ASP.Net on the standard model.
I really want to get to grips with MVC, but I don't have a justification for this at work and I have 2 kids and a wife at home so no time to develop at home.
Sometimes circumstances force your hand, if only we all had the choice of exactly what platform, framework etc. to develop with.
I am currently working on a project in Asp.net MVC with jQuery and jQuery-ui, and it's a lot of fun.
If you're familiar with html and javascript (or other MVC frameworks like rails), MVC makes much more sense than the old webforms. And you control the output, not some vague control on a form, so if there is an error on the page or if you want to change the layout you can :).
MVC. We're going to redo an application that is SEO intensive and MVC seams to fit right in out of the box. Plus I want to hang out with the cool kids on the playground.
I just released a major public site on the MVC platform after using webforms for all previous projects. Without a doubt it is the way to go, IMO.
With webforms, I have found the sites tend to become a mess over time as you have blocks of code in the code-behind that handles both view logic and controller logic. As the site grows and the logic gets more complex it is difficult to trace what is happening and where.
I find that that MVC forces you to break things up in a more logical manner. Controller and model classes allow you to get a better control on the organization of the application. In addition, views are more flexible because there is a specific way of providing data to them, through models.
Also, like others have mentioned, you have more control over the markup and urls and it plays nicer with client libraries like mvc.
The only time I would use MVC is if I was building and intranet site that was focused on reporting data of some sort where the built in controls that come with asp.net would save development time and I wasn't as concerned with the look and feel. I would never use asp.net webforms again for a major public facing site.
Both!
I am making the long haul to MVC. I have too much code that readily works in Web Forms. MVC is fantasic, but it sill leaves a lot in the productivty areas such as templated grids and lists, basic UI controls (calender, autocomplete, etc.) and scafolding. These are all areas where Web Forms excels at, but comes off the rails if you want precise control and want to keep things simple.
MVC 3 and EF Code-Only could be a great marriage if they are willing to bridge the gaps between the two. Most people that use Ruby use it for Rails, and ActiveRecord makes that easy to work with.
Also I would love to see a parallel "Feature Pack" project for MVC with MS support, similar to the way they did the Microsoft Ajax Toolkit, that would say have quarterly updates. I find MVC Futures and MVCContrib both lacking. But I know they only have so much budget. So, here's to hoping that MVC 3 changes all that.
Just say NO to ASP.NET MVC if you are developing for Intranet. For Internet, sure.
Hmm.. At the moment I am confused like you are and about to start building a new site :). I was going to start with Webforms, but now I see where the crowd is heading and I think I am going to give MVC a whirl now.
Thanks for asking this question.
Now that it's RTMed and now that there are some very good resources on it I would say ASP.net MVC would be my strong preference, but it's not cut and dried.
Web forms hasn't gone though, it's still there, it's still supported and I've worked on several major sites and used Web Forms very successfully, so if there were other external factors such as a customer preference, or perhaps a team that had solid Web Forms experience then I'd still be happy to work with Web Forms. That said I have already worked on one project with MVC (while it was still in preview), and I much prefer it - my reasons are similar to those given above so I won't repeat them all. I will say that if testability isn't the best reason it's certainly in the top one:).
I would choose MVC since designers and developers can work in parallel on the same project. Designers can work on the view part (JavaScript, CSS, HTML) while backend developers can work on the controller code.
I would like to be doing ASP.Net MVC, even though I'm still very new to MVC. But it's not to be in the foreseeable future.
I'm actually going to be starting a rebuild of a web site in the next couple of weeks that was horribly written in ASP.NET 2.0 and I am going to be using ASP.NET MVC. For a lot of the same reasons as above. I would rather not use custom .NET controls and handle the HTML/JavaScript (using jQuery) myself. I do a lot of Java web development as well so having a good understanding of the underlying HTML/JavaScript/CSS is important to me.