Which to learn Asp.net Webforms or MVC

[DeanMc]

So I had a chat with Mendhak earlier and decided I should learn ASP.Net to get the sweet sweet MONEY!

I've had a look at videos for both paradigms and both are pretty much as fugly as the other. Now unless silverlight gets built into every browser on the planet it seems that I need to learn one of the two asp.net paradigms.

What I would like to know is which you use and why? Also which you would recommend and why?

Cheers!

[gep13]

Hey,

At the minute, Microsoft are really pushing ASP.Net MVC, so you are likely to see a lot of hype about it going around just now.

One of the big driving factors behind MVC is it's ability to lend itself towards TDD (Test Driven Development) in fact, if you create an MVC Application in VS 2010, it actually creates a Unit Test Project to go along with it. If you lean at all towards TDD, then it would make sense for you to learn ASP.Net MVC.

Having said all that, ASP.Net has been around for a long while now, and most of the kinks have been ironed out of it, and with ASP.Net 4.0, there have been some impressive additions to the core functionality.

If I were in your position, I would say start with ASP.Net, get to know the fundamentals, and then build on it to learn MVC. Just my opinion.

Gary

[DeanMc]

Thanks,

One of the thinks I keep hearing is "learn the fundamentals". I've been looking at the webforms videos and they seem to hid alot of the "funtamentals. Now this could just be me coming from a prevous backround and not wanting to gloss over things like what is HTTP and lower level constructs.

I'm usually skeptical of frameworks esspecially after experimenting with Model View ViewShoehorn that is MVVM for silverlight/wpf. But I have to say I am impressed with the features of MVC as it seems its built in.

Again I could be slightlty biased. I do tend to like the Modular approch that MVx have in theory but theory is one thing as they say...

[gep13]

Hey,

Just so we are on the same page, are these the videos that you are talking about:

http://www.asp.net/web-forms/fundamentals

There is also a very good set of tutorial videos here:

http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/con...s_edition.aspx

But they aren't free

The problem is, at least from what I have seen, MVC builds on knowledge that an ASP.Net Developer might already know, so in my mind, you would be better to start there.

Gary

[DeanMc]

Yup they are the ones!

I shall start with the webforms one and the the mvc and see which one I prefer!

[gep13]

Hey,

That is going to be a big part of it as well.

Coming from a Windows Form Development background, you are going to run into things, both in ASP.Net and ASP.Net MVC, that simply don't make sense to you.

However, it may be the case that the patterns available in MVC make it worth the hassle, so you will tend more towards that one.

Best advice I can give is stick with it, it will make sense in the end, and you can always post a question here, as there will always be someone to help!

Gary

[DeanMc]

Cool! Cheers for the advice!

[FireXtol]

You could also learn PHP.

[gep13]

You could also learn PHP.

Controversial

[dilettante]

Actually there is a new option coming, out in Beta form right now wrapped up with several other new technologies. "Razor" is supposed to be an answer to Ruby on Rails and Microsoft is hoping to garner some of the PHP market with it as well. You might take a look at it as another alternative:

Introducing “Razor” – a new view engine for ASP.NET

Introducing WebMatrix

[gep13]

dilettante, have you had a chance to play with Razor yet? I have read about it, but not played with it?

As for Web Matrix, I had forgotten about that, definitely a nice play to start with ASP.Net Development.

Gary

[dilettante]

No I have not downloaded the Beta yet.

This is an all-new WebMatrix, only the name has been reused.

[gep13]

This is an all-new WebMatrix, only the name has been reused.

Oh that's right, there was an old school WebMatrix, I have a vague recollection of it, but never used it.

[DeanMc]

In the end I went with ASP.NET MVC. To me it seemed the more natural platform to work with.

[gep13]

Good stuff. Will be interesting to hear how you get on with it.

Hope you have fun developing for the web!!

Gary