SolutionMania

ASP.NET MVC. Like ASP.NET, but without the Voodoo!

Much has been written about Microsoft's new Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for ASP.NET. The initial reaction of many developers - me included - is that Microsoft are driving us back to the bad old days of 'tag soup'; Server side code sits nestled amongst the HTML just like the traditional ASP pages we were all so glad to move away from.

When you delve a little deeper though, and learn more about the MVC pattern it really starts to make sense. Most of the code you'll write will be in the Controller classes, completely separate from your HTML. Yes, there is a little server side code in the HTML (the View), but if done properly this can really be kept to a minimum.

If you're having similar concerns, I'd urge you to consider how it would have been received if it had been released with the first version of .NET, before the event driven page framework was released. I suspect the answer to this question is that it would have been met with almost immediate and universal approval. It is so far removed from the really bad days of traditional ASP that most of us would have been singing its praises from the highest rooftops.