It's my understanding that StackOverflow (SO) was built using ASP.NET. What surprised me is it's so well designed and well implemented. Without knowing much about the internals of SO, here are my observations and educated guesses:
SO appears to be highly scalable.
URLs in SO are friendly.
It appears that SO does not contain a bunch of controls as most ASP.NET apps I've seen.
Judiciously and effectively use of Ajax requests, opacity animation, etc. Viewing source tells me SO is using jQuery.
SO runs on all major browsers (that I've used and this list includes IE, FF, Chrome, Opera).
Edit: 6. Comet-like feature: As you type your answer, if there is any other answer posted, you get the notification. If you choose to load it, of course only a partial page refresh is done and your answer remain intact. Have yet to see this in any other ASP.NET app.
So my questions:
What are other ASP.NET web
applications that are as well done
as StackOverflow and what are their
features that you like?
Can you share
about some more details about SO,
for example is SO built using
ASP.NET MVC or something else?
SO is built using ASP.NET MVC as explained by Jeff Atwood and his team in this podcast organised by Scott Hanselman
Listening to the podcast would be worthwhile.
One surprising element about SO which was revealed in the podcast is that SO runs on a single server (IIS & SQL Server). I was surprised by this.
ASP.NET Forms allows developers to build UIs in much the same way as .NET Windows Forms.
The whole idea was that a developer that knew how to build a 'Fat Client' Windows form could transfer those skills to ASP.NET forms. ASP.NET forms even allowed developers to pretty much put code on the same set of control events. The developer was sheilded from having to have any knowledge of HTML, HTTP, Javascript etc.
Unfortunately this resulted in large POSTs containing monster viewstate being generated frequently and hence a poor user experience. This is what has given ASP.NET a bad rep. In reality its the original ASP.NET Forms that should have the bad rep.
ASP.NET MVC, amoungst other things, embraces the nature of HTTP rather than trying to hide it. AJAX and JQuery are also features of MVC which add to the overall result being better.
That said having a great tool is useless without great vision, design and skill, the SO team clearly have those in abundance.
Orkut.com - A social networking site by google uses ASP.NET
SO was build with ASP.NET MVC. Jeff hired good developers, had a good vision, and ran his screens through a real designer.
Myspace.com uses ASP.net, which proves the scalability of the platform in general. You can also learn a lot about stackoverflow itself from reading the stackoverflow blog and listening to the stackoverflow podcasts.
Many of the things you point out about are actually due to the use of ASP.NET MVC. Pretty URLs come out of the box, non-standard controls, well nothing comes out of the box with MVC so you have to reinvent everything :), and finally the AJAX is pretty much a requirement for ASP.NET MVC if you want to do anything intelligent with it.
ASP.NET MVC alone does not account for the things which makes StackOverflow truly successful that's all down to the idea, execution, and the fact that Jeff and Joel combined garners a huge following on the net.
You can also learn quite a lot about the development, planning(!), etc in the two HanselMinutes podcasts on SO:
StackOverflow uses ASP.NET MVC - Jeff Atwood and his technical team
Behind the Scenes - StackOverflow and Jeff Atwood - Part 2
Available in numerous audio formats, as well as transcribed.
ASP.NET creates websites limited only by the talent of the developers.
The same can be said for virtually any framework.
That said, Windows Server/IIS/.NET is a hugely scalable concept, as we serve far far more traffic than SO on a ASP.NET site (Then again, we have 32 servers).
As mentioned in one of the answers here, myspace.com uses ASP.NET (as far as I know it was written in ColdFusion and used BlueDragon for .NET).
One other site is plentyoffish.com (60M hits per day).
If you want to read more about scalability see http://highscalability.com
Related
Firstly, I have only recently tried my hand at building with razor in cshtml using Webmatrix and I found it much less time consuming than building aspx web forms. Having gotten used to it, I can now do all the things I used to do inside my aspx projects much quicker and with much less code...
Now, I've spent today looking around google etc at companies using cshtml, what they're using it for etc, but I can't find a large range of examples out there. Maybe I was just looking in the wrong place, rendering this question title incorrect, but I just had a feeling that there is a reason why companies are still using aspx over cshtml.
I'm about to start a project next month for a big client and I can't decide whether to take the step of building it this way (they need a custom blog, login area etc). Any thoughts? The only other stack thread I found of any use with regards to a debate was: Razor/CSHTML - Any Benefit over what we have?
Thanks,
Adam
A lot of it has to do with ASP (classic) has been around a lot longer and (depending the project size) a migration can incur too much cost.
There's also considerations like:
What does the current web staff know (what are they fluent in?)
What libraries (proprietary or otherwise) are already dependent on ASP (including custom controls).
How much of an SEO hit are you going to take converting (some sites can mimic classic aspx page suffixes by just changing the way the routes behaving but are in-fact using cshtml).
There isn't a compelling reason for experienced ASP.NET developers to move from Web Forms or MVC to Web Pages (Razor). As a framework, it is designed to attract those who might find Web Forms or MVC too much of a learning curve. Those coming from Classic ASP or PHP, for example.
I answer a lot of questions on the Web Pages framework over at the ASP.NET forums, and I have definitely seen an increase in the number of people trying the framework out. In terms of functionality and security, you have the whole ASP.NET framework behind you so you can do anything with Web Pages that you can do with MVC or Web Forms - a lot of it more easily.
The Web Pages framework is not designed with testability in mind, and it may be more difficult for teams to organise since a certain amount of server-logic is embedded in the same file as HTML.
If you are a lone developer and happy using Web Pages, go for it.
There been a lot of discussion about the topic. Its just opinions, right tool for the right job. Please look into the following for opinions & answers:
MVC 3 ASPX VS RAZOR View Engine
Razor vs Webforms view engine for new ASP.NET MVC 3 site
What is the difference between Razor and ASPX?
Hope this helps
I am new to ASP.NET. and having big job converting ASP E-commerce website (It has lots of things those are customised like business logic, having own Database structure) to ASP.NET. Here, I am getting confused with some issues... I am writing this here after having lots of thinking of these issues but still they are unsolved. I have estimated 8-10 weeks for these job, and this is 2nd week is going on...
Is it better to create E-Commerce website from scratch or Modify current available Solutions?
If Creating new one, than which one is better ? ASP.NET Web Forms using N-tier Structure or MVC (Having no experience in this)
Is it true that MVC makes website access faster than Web Forms does?
Or its better to take some time, learn MVC and go ahead?
I think, may be there are questions like these, than please redirect me on that.
Thanks.
If you know web forms, use web forms. Web forms is still a good technology with great third-party controls. There's no reason to use an unfamiliar technology.
I looked up the EF mentioned and came across http://efvote.wufoo.com/forms/z7x3p9/
Apparently there is a list close to 1000 experts including MVPs that state that EF is no longer a viable option unless MS invests in its improvement.
I have experience in javascript, html(Bronze certified), css(Gold certified), sql and xml(Bronze certified), and now have turned my attention towards server side scripting. I have little experience in php but have no Idea what to choose between MVC and ASP.NET Web Pages. I like all the features that ASP.NET Web Pages(Since I already new a little about server side scripting, so getting started was not that difficult and I know a few basic things.) have like, automatic form authentication among others but I seriously doubt that it can never be by-passed. Still, for safety I use my own algorithms against sql-injection and javascript codes. But, now I am confused what to learn, MVC or ASP.NET Web Pages. All the posts I searched on internet where for new programmers. Since I am not new they are no use to me. So what should I learn MVC OR ASP.NET Web Pages and why?
*English is not my native language, there may be some grammatical mistakes.
You are kind of asking what's the better option, apples or bananas. MVC is a pattern and allows you greater control over what HTML is sent to the browser whereas Web Forms has a great number of pre-made controls that do all the hard work rendering out html to the browser (but often less control of how it is rendered out)
It's also down to preferences, I personally prefer MVC as the unit testing and component nature of it give me great flexibility. Alternatively, using WebForms you can create some things quickly using drag and drop controls.
Hope that gives you a bit of useful info. I'd recommend reading up about both, and seeing which fits into your style of programming and go from there, but there's nothing stopping you learning and using both (just don't use them in the same project, lol)
Through a lot of sticking my head in the sand, reinventing the wheel and general stubbornness, I've managed to go all this time (years) avoiding learning the built-in ASP.Net support for web application authentication, users and roles. Part of the reason is that rolling my own originally seemed like less work than getting my head around all the different layers of optional abstraction provided by the ASP.Net security framework and as such I came up with a nice library that worked fine for me.
I'm now trying to go back to using as much of the built in functionality of ASP.Net (MVC2/3, not WebForms) as possible, as I've found that the more non-standard functionality you build into an application, the harder it is for other developers to pick up your code and work with it.
The web is thick with half-tutorials, badly explained articles and information that excludes important beneath-the-hood information about the ASP.Net security framework.
Are there any good tutorials that rip the lid off ASP.Net security and show you how to use it and how it all works without trying to push you through wizards and specific provider models without understanding all of the options and their pros and cons?
This is a 18 part series articles from Scott Mitchell.
It's a very deep explanation of all the features that regards Authentication, Authorization and Membership providers in asp.net. I did never found a better source on this from the same author.
MSDN is the best for ripping the lid off: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff647070.aspx
I have been working with C# for past four years at the enterprise level. Now, I have taken a decision of moving to Web side of the things. Since I am well versed with C# and WCF I naturally zeroed in on ASP.NET as I need not learn a new Programming language. Learning just the Web Framework will suffice.
I have read a lot regarding MVC, so starting out with MVC 2.
My Question is Will I face any roadblocks if I learn MVC without learning Web Forms? Keeping in mind that this is my first foray into Web Development?
Looking forward to some good suggestions.
I was in your exact same position. The only problems you may have is wrapping your head around postbacks and what tha means. Having said that, MVC2 will teach you how to write better code instead of the typical spaghetti that comes asociated with webforms.
If you're new to MVC2 I'd recommend buying Wrox Professional ASP.NET MVC2 from writer Scott Hanselman.
Learning web development these days is hard as you need to be an expert on so many different things!
You need to learn HTML/CSS/JavaScript(ie, JQuery)/Json regardless of the server side framework you are using if you are creating “rich” web applications.
I would say starting with ASP.NET MVC is not a bad option before moving onto ASP.NET Web Forms. You are likely to hit both going forward, but as ASP.NET MVC does not hide what’s going on so much, I think it may be a better start.
However if you just wish to create simple forms on the web, it is hard to beat ASP.NET Web Forms, but as soon as you wish to do something more advanced, the Web Forms complex page cycle will give you pain.
If you're looking to apply your web skills to enterprise environments, you'd probably find a lot of environments still leveraging Web Forms. Outside of that, I can't imagine it would really hurt you that much.
The bigger thing about web development is getting familiar with HTML/CSS/JavaScript(ie, JQuery). The skills learned there are applicable to either environment. You'd probably be able so switch back end frameworks rather painlessly as long as you're used to c# and all the web stuff previously mentioned.
I think it depends on what type of applications you are going to be developing. I believe web forms would be easier for you to learn with the background you already have in WCF. But it might not be worth it if the applications you are developing are better suited for MVC rather than web forms.
My recommendation would be to determine what type of applications you are going to be developing and then look at the strengths and weakness's of each and then determine which one you are going to focus on.
You most probably won't. There are some concepts that belong to the web-application environment (session, caching, etc) that are common but you'd have to learn about them anyway. They are two separate frameworks so nothing very specific about one of them could help you with the other.
You will undoubtedly run into issues when knowing a "new" way of doing things without having been brought up in the "old" way of doing things. It's unavoidable, really. I'd suggest learning the basics of WebForms code if possible, if for no other reason than to be able to trudge through it when necessary. Of course, if you find yourself in the position of having to support a WebForms application, you'll learn by doing just like anything else.
This question reminds me of my early days in .NET (which were the very early days of .NET in general) and trying to find assistance with various issues. I was an entry level developer, hitting up forums and such with questions. Everywhere I went, people weren't really adopting .NET just yet. They were all old Windows platform developers, whereas .NET was my first Windows development (I was all UNIX/Linux in school). Invariably, nearly every question I asked was answered with something suggesting that I "just use COM." Of course, I wasn't familiar with this. It was "the old way" and I was using "the new way."
It was difficult to work past that, and you'll likely face the same issue here. Basically, when people have made a career out of doing something the one single way they know how, they tend to expect everyone else to know it as well and will cling tightly to it as their bread and butter. You can be better than that, but it'll require patience :)
I assume that your development experience included Windows Forms. In terms of the transition from Windows Forms to ASP.NET WebForms, there's no doubt that would be an easier transition. Whether that would be the best transition is another question. And I believe the answer is without a doubt, no.
MVC allows you to gain an understanding of the way the Web works. Understanding GET and POST, Requests and Responses, not to mention HTML, CSS, JavaScript, et al.
I would not hesitate to recommend MVC.
I don't understand why you don't want to learn Web Forms. Learning Web Forms is just like learning abc's. You'll learn it as you go along with MVC. My suggestion is, Just go with the flow in your learning of MVC and you'll be surprise that you're already learning Web Forms.