June 29th, 2009 Posted in .Net, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.Net, Book Reviews, C# | No Comments »
Title: ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Problem – Design – Solution
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Nick Beradi, Al Katawazi, Marco Bellinaso
It seems that recently every man and his dog have been talking about ASP.Net MVC and the many advantages it brings along with it. I have to admit that, up until now, I have not really looked into it a great deal, except for watching a couple of sessions at last years MSDN Roadshow. Anyway, I decided that it was about time I found out more about ASP.Net MVC and see if it really was worth all of the hype.
Why did I read THIS book?
The reason I chose this book was two fold – firstly, it claimed to give you a good grounding in using ASP.Net MVC to those with experience of ASP.Net Web Development. Secondly, in the books’ own words it provided “solid, workable solutions to real work problems” (I was dubious about this claim….many books I have read have claimed to do this and failed miserably with the first couple of chapters).
First Impressions
Right from the very first chapter it starts off on the correct foot, giving an overview of the application you will create as you work through the book, that application being The Beer House, which is available for download as a starter kit. The main attraction of this application to me was that it contained many of the features I often implement in my own applications, such as forums, article management and user profile / membership management. The idea of reading a book that directly relates to my real-world programming was a big pull for me.
Thankfully, this book certainly does not try and force MVC down your throat as a must-use solution, instead giving an honest opinion that, yes MVC is very useful in many situations, but that in other situations, classic ASP.Net Web Forms may still be the more logical option. This is a refreshing change from some of the other more self-righteous books I have had the des-pleasure of sampling where they simply see their subject matter and related methods as the only way to go.
What’s Covered?
I don’t think I can put the content of the book in better words that the book itself, so here are those very words;
Techniques for building a flexible, easily configurable, and instrumented site
How to use jQuery to enhance and extend the capabilities of your ASP.NET MVC site
How to design a module to manage articles, news, and blog posts
Tips for creating and managing multiple polls on your site
Ways to build a robust newsletter system for e–mail newsletters on a background thread
How to develop a Web 2.0 community–centric forum from scratch
Steps for adding a working e–commerce store based on PayPal
All the different ways to deploy an ASP.NET MVC site
All of the above is covered in ample detail and I really did find this book extremely useful when relating the MVC implementation with my tradition Web Forms methods.
I especially liked the fact that attention was paid to the design of the application you create. Coming from a web design background I am often astounded by the lack of attention paid to this area and it was pleasing to see a chapter dedicated to this for the non-design minded developer.
The other thing I loved about this book was that as well as ensuring every detail was covered off when developing each solution for the Beer House application, the authors have made a clear effort to highlight when something more may be needed in different circumstances and provided sample code and examples where needed.
Source Code Problems
Probably the only bad thing I have to say about this book were the problems I had when attempting to get the source code to compile once I had downloaded it from the Wrox web site. I think the main problem was that the code on the site was possibly an old version with several other versions kicking around the internet. I am unsure as to which was the correct up-to-date copy.
However, all that said, with some tinkering, I did manage to get it to compile and what a lovely application it is. 
The Final Verdict
I found this book to be an extremely concise and focused journey through ASP.Net MVC and a perfect introduction to the subject and I would highly recommend it to anybody who is looking for a good grounding in the subject.
This was also my first read of a book from the Problem – Design – Solution series from Wrox, and if the other books in the series are in a similar style, then I look forward to reading more as the straight forward style with real-world connections suited me down to the ground.
You can find this book for sale on Amazon or from the Wiley web site.
Tags: ASP.Net, ASP.NET MVC, book review, C#, wrox
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