This site is about ASP.NET MVC, a website building toolkit built upon the core ASP.NET runtime that Microsoft has spent years developing. Like ASP.NET Webforms, it is highly performant, scalable, and allows you to leverage the massive and very useful .NET Framework. Unlike ASP.NET Webforms, it was built with testing and separation of presentation and model in mind by being built around the architectural pattern called "Model-View-Controller", or MVC for short. Because it would be really annoying to refer to ASP.NET MVC all of the time as "ASP.NET MVC", the site will refer to the framework simply as MVC. This is not because I think it is the only example of the pattern (it is certainly not); it is because I am lazy.
This site is for those who want to create websites using the ASP.NET MVC framework. MVC is great for beginners or those already comfortable with ASP.NET Webforms (though MVC does less "hand-holding" than its older sibling). For those who are experienced ASP.NET programmers, some of the "Getting Started" materials will be old hat and can be safely skipped.
This site makes the following assumptions about its readers. If you do not meet these criteria, you will probably find the site much harder to understand. First, this site is not about learning Html. If you do not know how Html works, get a book on that and work through it as well. Second, all code samples will be given in C#. This is not a political statement; I just enjoy it better and do not want to go through the trouble of duplicating all of the sample code. If you do not know C#, I recommend picking up a book on it. Third, this is not a site about .NET programming and assumes that you at least know the basics of that. If you do not, then MVC will be of no benefit, so go buy a book on .NET and learn it. In summary, you need to know the basics of Html (though you can learn that as you go along), C#, and .NET to even begin to use ASP.NET MVC. So if you need some books, I recommend Nerd Books or Amazon.
Supporting the Community
I know what it is like to learn new technologies. Often it will take readings from a few different writers to really get a concept as you encounter explanations worded and explained in sundry different ways. That is why you will see a large number of links to other resources on the web. MVC is young (not even released as of the typing of is paragraph) so the best documentation is blog posts put on the web by various folks who are fooling around and trying to get it working. They have helped me, so I am going to help them help you. You will often find links in the following format:
- The Official ASP.NET MVC Site
This is the official ASP.NET MVC site run by Microsoft. You will find relevant downloads, announcements and a number of very useful tutorials.
- Scott Guthrie's Blog
Scott Guthrie is the dude in charge of a number of developer projects at Microsoft. He does not post often, but when he does, his posts are worth reading in detail. His posts on ASP.NET MVC have been fantastic.
- Phil Haack's Blog
Phil Haack is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft and is working on the MVC framework. Lots of good material on ASP.NET MVC
Samples
You will find a lot of samples to go along with this site. The site itself will be downloadable as one big sample as well, just in case you might find it beneficial. Built into the site will be a number of examples, which you can get with the source of the site. Instead of being practical but yet boring, we will theme the examples after something other than an e-commerce store, photo gallery or other nonsense like that. Instead, the samples will be themed around a zoo. And not just a zoo...a zoo that has warlike factions of animals bent on the utter destruction of the others. We will see how this works out...
Ready?
If you are ready it is time to...
...or...
