Theory, the boring part. Or the second partial (and the last) review of Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework

After having the exciting knowing how to work with ASP.NET MVC in pratice, I move to the boring part, theory, of Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework. This part is broken up to 9 chapters.

Chapter 7, "Overview of ASP.NET MVC Projects", gives me the understand about ASP.NET MVC project structure, how to debug a project, and detail about the request processing pipeline which teaches you what each components in ASP.NET MVC does.

Chapter 8, "URLs and Routing", teaches me how to configure the routing in details, gives me some best practices for URL schemas, and how to test URL routing.

Chapter 9, "Controllers and Actions", explains how a controller receives input, produces output, do filter. It also mentions about controller factory, and again, testing for controller.

Chapter 10, "Views", lets me know how to use inline code, HTML Helper, partial views, Html.RenderAction to produce views. It also gives me some basic about how to create a custom view engine, and introduces some third-party view engine (NVelocity, Spark, Brail, NHaml).

Chapter 11, "Data Entry", you got controllers, you got views, but what makes users use your applications, it's data. This chapter teaches me how to bind data from model and how to validate data.

Chapter 12, "Ajax and Client Scripting", explains me how to get support from ASP.NET MVC's Ajax Helpers and jQuery to make the web application more attractive.

Chatper 13, "Security and Vulnerability", mentions about the most important thing for web appplications, security, and gives me some insights to address it.

Chapter 14, "Deployment", you finish a web application and you need to put it to work in the real world, so what do you need to care about, this chapter will help you.

Chapter 15, "ASP.NET Platform Features", ASP.NET MVC is not just it, it was based on ASP.NET platform, and there are some features you need to know to use them (Windows authentication, forms authentication, data caching, i18n, adressing performance,...)

Chapter 16, "Combining MVC and WebForms", gives you a mixed salad with ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET WebForms.

At the end, I recommend this book is a MUST READ for developers who need to know and UNDERSTAND about ASP.NET MVC. You will have no regret to read it.

Enjoy reading :-)

Partial review of Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework

I've just finished the last chapter of part 1 of Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework. In this part, the author teaches me how to write a small online store where users can browse all products, filters the products by category, add products to cart, remove them from cart, and do check out. The store also has a basic administration area where the administrator can add/update/remove products (with theirs pictures).

What I learn from this part are

• Understand the steps to create a real ASP.NET MVC application
• How to write unit tests for routing/controllers with NUnit and Moq
• There is a surprise that the author used Castle Windsor as IOC container for this application which I want to know the basic

I will continue with part 2, and for sure, I will come back with the review of part 2.

BTW, if you want to learn ASP.NET MVC in practical, you must read this book.

Why I like MVC

These days there are many discussions about ASP.NET WebForms vs ASP.NET MVC and why they prefer ASP.NET WebForms over ASP.NET MVC, or vice versa. But there is only one REAL reason I prefer MVC, in this particular case ASP.NET MVC (over ASP.NET WebForms), is I HAVE FULL CONTROL. When I like to have full control, it doesn't mean I don't trust others, and even I need to work more (to control), but I HAVE MORE FUN.

So I total agree with Jeffrey, "ASP.NET MVC in Action" author.