ASP.NET MVC 1.0 - Are you ready for it?

ASP.NET MVC v1.0 is finally here! Today it is available as an add-on to ASP.NET 3.5 SP1. One thing that has been missing from the ASP.Net suite is the out of box support for Model-View-Controller (MVC) design/architecture pattern. It is well known that with web development, MVC is the best way to go. With classic ASP it was impossible (almost) to achieve MVC pattern while with ASP.Net Web-Form it was somewhat better (separation of View and Controller/Model) but still it was too tightly coupled. Now with ASP.NET MVC one can truly achieve the benefits of this design.

But question is are you ready for it? ASP.Net MVC introduces a new paradigm in web development. It is an intrusive technology that can radically change the way folks develop web-based applications. Right now ASP.Net MVC is not a replacement for Web-Forms but rather another option. But what can you expect when you start developing with ASP.Net? Are there any surprises waiting for you. May be ...

First, the "ViewState" and "PostBack" concept of web-forms no longer holds good. Everything is either a GET or POST. So "State Management" is no longer out of the box but needs to be handled by the developer. This also means "Server Controls" are useless and no "GridView"!!!. You need to implement you own 'gridview' (though not a difficult task).
What about standard functionalities like "Paging", "Sorting", "In-Place Edit", "Styles" ? None of the features comes out of the box and needs to be implemented too. This necessarily means knowledge of "Extension Methods", "Lambda Expressions", "Query Syntax" is a must thereby increasing the learning curve and the go-to-market speed.
What about AJAX? There is no AJAX support out of the box (like UpdatePanel in web-forms). You need to make use of JavaScript/JQuery to implement AJAX functionalities. What about Security? Early adopters of ASP.Net MVC have raised concerns over inherent security flaws in MVC framework e.g. "Delete Link through GET", "POST Data tampering" to name a few. With regard to deployment, it supports IIS 7.0 Integrated mode by defualt. For older IIS like 7.0 classic and 6.0, to needs to be configured.

WOW! that's lot of "surprises"! You might be tempted to think ASP.Net MVC is not something you want to try. But keep in mind ASP.NET MVC 1.0 is just coming out of infancy. By the next release, due to the hard work put in by early adopters, it would have reach an acceptable level of maturity with lot of the standard functionality in place. In the long run, ASP.Net MVC has the potential to shorten the development schedule, gear everyone towards Test-Driven Development(TDD) and ease maintenance of large and complex projects.

On the flip side, there are few things I don't like about the ASP.NET MVC implementation because it reminds me of classic ASP!!! I'll elaborate more in my next post.

Before signing off, I must say, ASP.NET MVC provides you with all the control that you asked for. It is here to stay. But remember what uncle Ben said to Spidey :"with great power comes great responsibility".