1. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
Chapter 1
ASP.NET MVC Development

2. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
Contents
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
The case for ASP.NET MVC
Tooling up 2

3. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
1. The Case for ASP.NET MVC
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
What is ASP.NET MVC?
ASP.NET Web Forms – issues
Web development – state of play
ASP.NET MVC architecture
ASP.NET MVC benefits
ASP.NET Web Forms or MVC? 3

4. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
What is ASP.NET MVC?
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET MVC is a web development platform from Microsoft
A significant evolution for web developers using the Microsoft platform
ASP.NET MVC emphasises the best of the ASP.NET platform and agile development:
Clean architecture
Design patterns
Testability 4

5. ASP.NET Web Forms – Issues
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
Traditional ASP.NET Web Forms were a great step forward when they first emerged
Much better than classic Active Server Pages (ASP)
Simple, especially for relatively small applications
However, there are some significant issues with ASP.NET Web Forms
ViewState transmission can be onerous
The ASP.NET page life cycle is complicated and subtle
The ASP.NET code-behind model encourages developers to mix presentation logic and application logic
Web Forms attempt to encapsulate the intricacies of HTML and HTTP, but this can sometimes be an obstacle
It's difficult to automate unit testing for ASP.NET Web Forms 5

6. Web Development – State of Play
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
Key features of Web development today:
Ajax
Web standards
REST (Representational State Transfer)
Agile and test-driven development 6

7. ASP.NET MVC Architecture
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
The controller is probably the most interesting player
Processes user input
Works with the model to handle the request
Manages application logic
E.g. navigating a multi-step process, authentication, etc.
Prepares the data to be displayed
This is known as "view data" in ASP.NET MVC
Controller
Model
HTTP Request
View
Response
HTML
View data 7

8. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET MVC Benefits
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
Here are the key benefits of ASP.NET MVC:
Model-View-Controller architecture
Extensibility (ASP.NET MVC components are pluggable)
Reusable and consistent model classes
Testability
Flexible routing system
Tight control over HTML (standards-compliant)
Leverages strengths of the ASP.NET platform
Simplified JavaScript/Ajax integration 8

9. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET Web Forms or MVC?
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET Web Forms is still appropriate for:
Small Web applications
MVC would be overkill
Simple Intranet-style Web applications
Fast networks, so you don't care about ViewState transmission overheads
Quick-to-market apps
Maybe you don't really care about unit testing or long-term maintenance
Web apps where you have a lot of corporate data
Where you just want to display the data in data grids
Scenarios where the drag-and-drop simplicity of Web Forms outweighs its weaknesses
A word about migration…
You can mix ASP.NET WebForms and MVC in the same Web app
Allows you to migrate WebForms to MVC piecemeal, if you want to 9

10. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
2. Tooling Up
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
Core development tools
MVC4
Downloading and installing MVC 4 10

11. Core Development Tools
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
The following tools include ASP.NET MVC by default:
Visual Studio 2010 (any edition)
Visual Web Developer 2010 Express (free)
The following tools don't include ASP.NET MVC by default (you must download ASP.NET MVC separately from
Visual Studio 2008 with SP1 (any edition)
Visual Web Developer 2008 Express with SP1 (free) 11

12. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET MVC 4 builds on ASP.NET MVC 1, 2, and 3
Adds features to simplify code and support deeper extensibility
Installs side-by-side with ASP.NET MVC 2
Key new features:
Expressive views, including the new Razor view engine
Internet and Intranet project templates
HTML 5 support
Extensible scaffolding with MvcScaffold integration
Hooks for Dependency Injection and global action filters
JavaScript and Ajax improvements
Model validation improvements
Controller improvements
Page caching and data caching 12

13. Downloading and Installing MVC 4
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
Download available from MVC 4 home page
We'll install via installer executable
C:\AspNetMvc4\Products\AspNetMVC4ToolsUpdateSetup.exe
Effect:
Adds new ASP.NET MVC 4 project templates
Extends existing APIs, adds new APIs 13

14. Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
Summary
Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
The case for ASP.NET MVC
Tooling up 14