Should I migrate to ASP.NET MVC?

Question

I just listened to the StackOverflow team's 17th podcast, and they talked so highly of ASP.NET MVC that I decided to check it out.

But first, I want to be sure it's worth it. I already created a base web application (for other developers to build on) for a project that's starting in a few days and wanted to know, based on your experience, if I should take the time to learn the basics of MVC and re-create the base web application with this model.

Are there really big pros that'd make it worthwhile?

EDIT: It's not an existing project, it's a project about to start, so if I'm going to do it it should be now...

---

I just found this

It does not, however, use the existing post-back model for interactions back to the server. Instead, you'll route all end-user interactions to a Controller class instead - which helps ensure clean separation of concerns and testability (it also means no viewstate or page lifecycle with MVC based views).

How would that work? No viewstate? No events?

Answer 1

If you are a professional ASP.NET developer, and have some time to spare on learning new stuff, I would certainly recommend that you spend some time trying out ASP.NET MVC. It may not be the solution to all your problems, and there are lots of projects that may benefit more from a traditional webform implementation, but while trying to figure out MVC you will certainly learn a lot, and it might bring up lots of ideas that you can apply on your job.

One good thing that I noticed while going through many blog posts and video tutorials while trying to develop a MVC pet-project is that most of them follow the current best practices (TDD, IoC, Dependency Injection, and to a lower extent POCO), plus a lot of JQuery to make the experience more interesting for the user, and that is stuff that I can apply on my current webform apps, and that I wasn't exposed in such depth before.

The ASP.NET MVC way of doing things is so different from webforms that it will shake up a bit your mind, and that for a developer is very good!

OTOH for a total beginner to web development I think MVC is definitely a better start because it offers a good design pattern out of the box and is closer to the way that the web really works (HTML is stateless, after all). On MVC you decide on every byte that goes back and forth on the wire (at least while you don't go crazy on html helpers). Once the guy gets that, he or she will be better equipped to move to the "artificial" facilities provided by ASP.NET webforms and server controls.

Answer 2

I have used ASP.NET MVC (I even wrote a HTTPModule that lets you define the routes in web.config), and I still get a bitter taste in my mouth about it.

It seems like a giant step backwards in organization and productivity. Maybe its not for some, but I've got webforms figured out, and they present no challenge to me as far as making them maintainable.

That, and I don't endorse the current "TEST EVERYTHING" fad...

Answer 3

ASP.NET MVC basically allows you to separate the responsibility of different sections of the code. This enable you to test your application. You can test your Views, Routes etc. It also does speed up the application since now there is no ViewState or Postback.

BUT, there are also disadvantages. Since, you are no using WebForms you cannot use any ASP.NET control. It means if you want to create a GridView you will be running a for loop and create the table manually. If you want to use the ASP.NET Wizard in MVC then you will have to create on your own.

It is a nice framework if you are sick and tired of ASP.NET webform and want to perform everything on your own. But you need to keep in mind that would you benefit from creating all the stuff again or not?

In general I prefer Webforms framework due to the rich suite of controls and the automatic plumbing.

Answer 4

5 Reasons You Should Take a Closer Look at ASP.NET MVC

Answer 5

@Jonathan Holland I saw that you were voted down, but that is a VERY VALID point. I have been reading some posts around the intertubes where people seem to be confusing ASP.NET MVC the framework and MVC the pattern.

MVC in of itself is a DESIGN PATTERN. If all you are looking for is a "separation of concerns" then you can certainly achieve that with webforms. Personally, I am a big fan of the MVP pattern in a standard n-tier environment.

If you really want TOTAL control of your mark-up in the ASP.NET world, then MVC the ramework is for you.

Answer 6

I would create a test site first, and see what the team thinks, but for me I wouldn't go back to WebForms after using MVC.

Some people don't like code mixed with HTML, and I can understand that, but I far prefer the flexibility over things like Page Lifecycle, rendering HTML and biggy for me - no viewstate cruft embedded in the page source.

Some people prefer MVC for better testibility, but personally most of my code is in the middle layer and easily tested anyway...