It’s been a little over a year since I’ve devoted myself to Asp.net MVC 3 and on the whole I’m quite impressed. Microsoft seems to have picked a definite direction for the web (the Microsoft Web Platform Installer makes a nice guide for it), and I like it. Here is my broad review, please bear in mind I’ve been doing asp.net webforms for about ten years.
The Pros of ASP.Net MVC 3
- The Razor View Engine – Brevity is wonderful
- The integration with Sql Server and Entity Framework CodeFirst
- The full integration with JQuery
- The bare metal approach to html, it is much easier to find bugs in the code when there is less code.
- The full integration with Visual Studio 2010 – it is nice to have the platform and the IDE work fully together
- NuGet! The single best way to install add-ons.
- The ease of testing your code via the test capabilities of Visual Studio
The Cons of ASP.Net MVC 3
- It is a pain to test actual data. With the advent of code-first one would think that you could simply have a test database, but there is no way. One has to use db fakes, which makes your entire testing a bit less useful.
- Coded User Interface Tests are not baked into the system in any way, and for no particular reason one cannot have CUITS in the same solution as the most popular ASP.net MVC 3 scaffolding packages.
On the whole, I am a huge fan – for more information about it, check out the wonderful work that Shawn Wildermuth and Scott Hanselman have been doing.
Tags: Microsoft
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Written By Steve French |
