I am fresh out of college and I've been put on a project using the technologies/techniques mentioned in the title. It's all a bit mind boggling to learn these new patterns on such a large codebase so I was wondering if there is a sample app somewhere (something ridiculously basic like a phonebook maybe?) that will demo these patterns. Thanks!
(Castle Windsor is the framework in use and then there's a custom built ORM library)
"Who can help me" is a nice reference web app using Sharp Architecture (ASP.NET MVC, NHibernate, Windsor, repositories). It's not a trivial app though, but in a trivial app you wouldn't see how these technologies fit together anyway.
I liked the sharparchitecture.net Tutorial. Although it is a tutorial about sharparchitecture it covers testdrivendevelopment(TDD), ASP.NET, DDD, Repository Pattern and the use of Interfaces which is the base of IoC.
I am looking for an example of an asp.net website(with source), implemented with 3 layer architecture and has some complexities like user authentication and user permissions, etc. .
Does anybody know such an example?
If you're favouring ASP.NET MVC (and I would suggest you should be) then Nerd Dinner (source) is one of the best examples on structuring an application.
Personally I feel that rather than focus on n-Tier/3-Tier architectures you should focus your efforts on responsibly designing web applications using principles like SOLID.
KiGG is a nice application to use for reference.
Source code can be found on codeplex: http://kigg.codeplex.com/
Which orm you would recommend for a beginner moving from ado.net?... Thus far used ado.net stored procedures with asp.net and now like to move with an orm.. Any suggestion..
NHibernate is nice, but it does require a bit more configuration for the ORM (even though fluent NHhibernate is quite nice).
I have heard that beginners in .NET ORM's have had quite good success with Subsonic: http://www.subsonicproject.com/.
NHibernate. The new development branch - much better support for LINQ than the current released versions.
At the risk of sounding odd - why not http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb425822.aspx??
Yes, I know - Microsoft has officially said there wouldn't be much more development on it - even though it was bugfixed and enhanced in .NET 4. It's still in .NET 4 - so it'll be around for at least 3-5 years. It's easy to use - much easier than NHibernate - with a visual designer and code generation.
It's simple and easy to understand, and it can give you a great intro to using an ORM.
Once you've learned, internalized, and understood the principles, you can always move on to a more enterprise-ready solution, like NHibernate, or Entity Framework v4.
See Scott Guthrie's excellent blog post series on Using Linq-to-SQL for a great intro, or check out the Nerddinner tutorial which showcases ASP.NET MVC and Linq-to-SQL.
NHibernate is currently one of the most popular ORM's, but Microsoft has been busy working on Entity framework. In time this may become the most popular and the best simply because it comes with .Net Framework.
I'd second the LINQ2SQL option if you're using SQL Server.
LINQ2SQL:
is easy to learn, with lots of guidance available online;
has good tooling for design and debugging in Visual Studio; and
provides adequate performance for all but the most extreme of situations (StackOverflow uses it for data access, for example).
There have been rumours of its demise for a while, but Microsoft's market research seems to show more developer support than for Entity Framework which, whilst arguably more powerful, is also more complex. LINQ skills are transferable to other ORMs too, with options for LINQ2Entities (for Entity Framework) and, I believe, support from SubSonic also.
Entity Framework
Definitely try that out. Solid support from Microsoft themselves, support for Many-to-Many relationships, eSQL lets you at the lower layers, etc.
I'm looking for a good asp.net webforms reference application.
We have some developers with VB6 experience, but no web application experience. I'd like to provide them with a couple of example apps that make use of a few simple forms, some user controls, db access, etc. An application that made use of a separate project for classes would be a nice bonus.
There seem to be a lot of very simple examples/tutorials for given features, but I can't find a good reference app that covers all of the above-mentioned topics.
Any suggestions?
I would recommend the ASP.NET starter kits here on the asp.net site. They are pretty diverse. My suggestion would be to actually try the hosted versions until you find one that suits the features you're trying to demonstrate. BeerHouse is a great start.
This one looks pretty interesting. It's a shameless plug for the Infragistics controls, but it looks like they're doing some non-trivial things:
The reference application shows the
use of web services, client side java
scripting, XML data binding and other
real world code samples.
http://devcenter.infragistics.com/RefApps/Expense/Expense.aspx
http://www.asp.net/community/projects/
Starter kits are a good place to look...
After being frustrated in my attempts to learn the arcana that is ASP.NET, I decided to try ASP.NET MVC.
I have extensive experience with C# 2.0 doing just about everything (WinForms, Windows Services, remoting, ...) except ASP.NET . I've been writing PHP for even longer than I've been coding .NET. With all of this experience, I thought I was ready for ASP.NET MVC. I now see I'm learning the following simultaneously and having a bit of a hard time with it:
the MVC pattern in general
ASP.NET
ASP.NET MVC
.NET 3.5.
I'm currently about 1/2 way through the NerdDinner free book chapter. I don't feel completely lost but I do get the feeling that I'm not catching on to as much as I'd like to (due to the fact that I'm learning 4 things at once -- sometimes it's not clear which skills are from which abstraction layer).
What prerequisite knowledge would you recommend for ASP.NET MVC? Any/all of those I listed above? Others? Or maybe I'm just slow and most people would be fine doing what I did.
I have been an ASP.Net developer for just 3 years now. I got a project from a friend and decided to develop it using ASP.Net MVC to learn this new stuff.
I must admit I felt lost in the beginning as well, but then I saw some very interesting articles on the ASP.Net/MVC site. At the bottom are 7 iterations which will give you a very detailed of what you are doing while you are doing it.
I used the Products example they have there and applied sortof the same to my own project.
After all the iterations, I now feel like I have a very good base to start learning the more advanced MVC implementations. (JQuery plugins/Ajax/...)
http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/
I think some basic understanding of ASP.Net is a base requirement. If you have that, you should be able to get through this with just a little bit of motivation.
"MVC pattern in general" - no need but useful.
ASP.NET - also not necessary.
.NET 3.5 - yes. It will be your working tool, you should master it.
Very useful would be the understanding of multi-tier architecture since this time you will have to think first about how you organize your application, opposite to direct hacking with controls in WebForms.
Also you will not avoid knowledge of HTML/CSS, maybe JavaScript.
Just don't be scared. Do it one step at a time and you will get it. Just don't read too much. Practice it.
Lots of highly useful tutorials are to be found here: ASP.NET MVC Tutorials
Also read blogs from ASP.NET MVC "parents":
http://haacked.com
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/default.aspx
http://www.hanselman.com/
http://stephenwalther.com/blog/Default.aspx
I have a similar background. I have used .Net/C# since its inception, but all system related, no web experience. About 8 months ago, I decided that I wanted to learn about the web and decided that for me ASP.NET MVC seemed like the right way to go. I don't feel that my lack of ASP.NET experience was too much of a hindrance. I used the http://www.asp.net/mvc/ site as the center for my learning. All the videos are good, plus the tutorials and all the sample projects. I have downloaded most of them and have enough familiarity that when I can't figure something out I go to one of the downloaded projects with a similar requirement and look to see how it was coded. Knowing no web technology, I also ordered books on HTML, CSS, JAVA script, AJAX and Jquery. For me the best way to learn is to develop a project, so that it what I did. Most of the authors of the new MVC books also have blogs with lots of good information. When I started to learn about MVC, the MVC books hadn't been published yet, but I am sure there are some good ones out there by now or that will be available soon.
I have enjoyed the new experience and have learned a lot, I think the new technology is great. Good Luck!
I recommend getting a book on ASP.NET MVC and working through the examples in the book. Don't worry too much about the history of the MVC design pattern or it's 1979 roots at Xerox PARC. I wouldn't bother reading much more about the actual MVC pattern than this simple article from MSDN: Cutting Edge: ASP.NET Presentation Patterns
I recently finished Steve Sanderson's Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework and I can recommend it. It has a multiple chapter sample application that gets you started quickly with ASP.NET MVC and then 10 or so follow-up chapters that cover the relevant topics in depth (Controllers, Views, Security, etc). The book has a strong focus on unit testing and dependency injection and also covers basic object relational mapping with LINQ to SQL. There is also chapters that cover integrating jQuery with ASP.NET MVC and how you might utilize framework components (authorization, membership, roles, personalization, caching, etc) from traditional WebForms applications.
There are a number of positive reviews on Steve's Blog which is also a good source of additional ASP.NET information. Amazon.com has a couple of positive reviews on the book (I need to add mine when I get some free time). You can also preview some of the book over at Google Books.
Some of the other books that are available now or available shortly are:
Wrox: Beginning ASP.NET MVC 1.0 --- Both authors
Keyvan Nayyeri and Simone Chiaretta are active ASP.NET MVC bloggers. There is a sample chapter on testing for download here. I've read that it should be available at the end of June 2009?
Manning: ASP.NET MVC in Action --- This book is by Ben Scheirman, Jeffrey Palermo and Jimmy Bogard. They all have interesting blogs that cover ASP.NET MVC related topics. If I heard correctly, this book should be out in August 2009. You can pre-order the book (MEAP = Manning Early Access Program) here and get access to the first 11 chapters (unedited or loosely edited I think). The CodeCampServer reference application that complements the book is pretty intense and covers using nHibernate (ORM), Castle Windsor (DI / IoC), DDD, unit, integration and regression testing.
Wrox: Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0 --- This is the book that accompanies the NerdDinner sample application and reader that was made available a while back. It's authored by some pretty smart Microsoft guys: Rob Conery, Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselmann and Phil Haaaaaaaaaaaaack who have the inside information on why certain decisions were made with the framework. Available now.
Packt: ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Quickly --- The author Maarten Balliauw has a pretty good blog that talks about various ASP.NET MVC issues including testing. Available now.
Sams: ASP.NET MVC Framework Unleashed --- Author Stephen Walther is responsible for a number of popular ASP.NET Unleashed books from the early 1.0 days of ASP.NET and now he is writing a book on ASP.NET MVC. You can check out his blog for sample content from the upcoming book and other ASP.NET MVC related posts. Amazon says this book will be available in July 2009.
Wrox: ASP.NET MVC Website Programming Problem Design Solution --- This appears to be a follow-up to the book Wrox: ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem Design Solution and welcomes back author Marco Bellinaso and introduces two new authors to the project Nick Berardi and Al Katawazi. The sample application for the book is the Beerhouse CMS and is available for download on CodePlex. The book's website says that it will be released in June 2009.
I think once one wraps one's head around the idea that MVC uses routing to direct requests straight to classes (which use a model for connections and a view for display) rather than showing "actual" pages, the concept of MVC in a web application really presents itself more clearly. With the 'difficulty of concept' out of the way, it's a lot easier to consider those attributes and make a decision whether MVC is suited to a particular application.
edit -- having said that, if I were new to ASP.NET, I would probably tackle the forms version first and get a good understanding of events, postback, and the methodology of that system before going into MVC because ASP.NET MVC is really handled on top of that system.
edit 2 - I think I got voted down before finishing my edits :-(
This is a good introduction from Martin Fowler. He talks in detail about GUI Architectures.
Start reading some material on the following topics and they will really help you gear yourself towards any MVC in general. Here are some topics that you can look up online:
Routing.
The MVC Pattern.
Controllers and Actions.
Mapping parameters.
ActionResults.
Error handling.
Action filtering.
Passing data to a view.
HTML Helpers.
View rendering extensibility.
Using jQuery with ASP.NET MVC.
Best practice tips for views, controllers, and models.
MVC Anti-patterns.
If you don't already know Webforms, then stick to learning just MVC right now so that you don't confuse yourself. Webforms is a useful thing to know, and since you know Winforms already, it shouldn't be too hard to learn afterward.
MVC and Webforms both work under ASP.NET, so a lot of things you'll learn while playing with MVC will carry over to Webforms.
It might help to approach Asp.Net MVC from a different angle: Read the Agile Web Development With Rails book, follow along (implement using Rails), and try to implement a project of similar scope to what's in that book in ASP.Net MVC.
You'll pick up Rails quickly (a week or two of hacking around a couple of hours a night), and the explication of the conventions of Rails will guide you into a mindset that aligns fairly closely with the Asp.Net MVC way. It'll probably help you understand the motivations for MVC along the way, and you'll certainly have opinions about how things "should" work in Asp.net MVC.
I would spend some time on ASP.NET first before learning ASP.NET MVC. Remember, ASP.NET MVC is based on ASP.NET. Some things from traditional ASP.NET won't be used with the MVC model (user controls, (ASCX and ASPX files)) but it is a good thing to still understand these. If you want to focus on MVC, first learn ASP.NET but do not spend time studying the common controls or databinding.
The rest of ASP.NET is still useful (HttpModules, HttpHandlers, the web.config file, the membership provider, etc) when you're doing ASP.NET MVC, and I'd say likely a prerequisite to really using ASP.NET MVC well.
That said, there is a lot more work for ASP.NET out there than ASP.NET MVC. Some employers are looking for people who know MVC, but they are mainly doing that as they are looking for people who are passionate about learning new things. My concern with ASP.NET MVC is that I don't see how to integrate it with traditional ASP.NET applications. The reality is most jobs out there involve working with an existing codebase, not starting from scratch.
I'd been following ASP.Net MVC pretty much from the beginning, and I have to say, I love it. Combined with Unity (or another DI framework) it just flows nicely. I've always liked a certain separation of concerns principle anyhow, and favored ASP.Net over PHP (and classic ASP). I didn't always like the control pattern of ASP.Net though. MVC fits much better. And with Json() and PartialView() for return types interacting with jQuery.getJSON() and $("#mydiv").load() is very simplified on the server-side. It also works well when following SOLID Design principles...
It does help to have a solid understanding of HTML and JavaScript (AJAX, DHTML) for more interactive points. It also helps to think in terms of the MVC pattern, or not thinking about cluttering your controller and your data.
One thing I don't care as much for, is the lack of a built in skinning system, for multiple skins on a web-app. I've come around this, and having the source really helps. I would say as other have suggested, follow the blogs (and read back) of
Phil Haack,
Scott Guthrie, and
Scott Hanselman. They all have vital information. Beyond this, as also mentioned, the demos on the ASP.Net MVC Website are very good.
Apart from what others have recomended I would suggest the following two books:
Spring in Action : It's not ASP.NET MVC, it's about Spring, but the foundations are similar and it's really well written.
Pro ASP.NET MVC 2 Framework : It explains the concepts in an easy to follow way, and it helps introduce DI into ASP.NET MVC.
All previous post are so cool :) but i want to add my own view. Without some base of asp.net runtime mechanism you can't write a good app. This info you could get from dino esposito book(he has two books about asp.net 2.0 - basic and advanced level) in basic level - there is one chapter about processing incoming request - you could read only this chapter.
If you know what is httpapplication, httpruntime, request, response etc. just skip my answer.
I know from my brief time with a Ruby on Rails job, coming back to ASP.NET and working with MVC it was easy to apply what I learned from RoR to ASP.NET MVC. Truthfully, ASP.NET MVC is actually just about the VC part and not much about the Model since ASP.NET doesn't have to be very REST based whereas RoR practically enforces it.
The problem I find is trying to get people to learn correct conventions of MVC when they are first learning it by coming from ASP.NET itself. Like others have mentioned, it might be a good idea to learn a true MVC platform (in this case RoR) because trying to apply what you know about ASP.NET to a MVC architecture. A good place to start with RoR is http://railsforzombies.org/ It's also kind of fun and will give you the basics for what really goes where in the ideal REST MVC scenario. After that apply what you know to the MVC for ASP.NET.
The very first and basic thing with ASP.Net MVC is the Routing concepts. LEarn this well first. You can also go throught System.Web.Routing Namespace on getting some more idea on this. Routing is just telling the IIS that is there is a request for a particular extension then redirect to this handler.
The next thing would "Convention over configuration". For MVC you need to have a particular folder structure like Controller,Model and Views .Nothing more mystery here.