ASP.NET: MVC v WebForms

SimonTemplar

I know there are loads of articles about this topic online, but I'm curious about the opinions of the members of this forum on this issue, especially any ASP.NET leads.

For example, let's say you had a develop a typical online store with a shopping cart. Would you recommend MVC or WebForms and what are their benefits/drawbacks.

Aside from the relative simplicity/fast dev time of WebForms do they hold any other major advantage over MVC.

Cheers

Colonel Panic

WebForms aren't terrible, but I think postbacks and embedded viewstate is at odds with how the web works. It feels like a solution for desktop app developers.

I wouldn't balk at having to maintain WebForms sites, but new development should always be done with MVC, which IMO is one of the best frameworks of it's kind.

It's insanely quick and easy to make stuff with MVC once you get your head around the conventions and learn a bit of Razor syntax.

SimonTemplar

Colonel Panic wrote: »

WebForms aren't terrible, but I think postbacks and embedded viewstate is at odds with how the web works. It feels like a solution for desktop app developers.

I wouldn't balk at having to maintain WebForms sites, but new development should always be done with MVC, which IMO is one of the best frameworks of it's kind.

It's insanely quick and easy to make stuff with MVC once you get your head around the conventions and learn a bit of Razor syntax.

That is exactly how I feel about Webforms. I'm currently doing ASP.NET as part of a Computing degree course and we are focused entirely on Webforms. I think that is a mistake, hence my question here. I think there is far too much abstraction using Webforms (even the GUI wizards Visual Studio has to set up your db etc). Students don't get a feel for the underlying first principles. I know the MVC framework abstracts some of the workings also, but not to the same extent as Webform (from what I've seen so far anyway)

jimmycrackcorm

Work on a legacy web application that is mostly webforms. They are terrible, every screen update flashes the browser. We've moved to mvc for new stuff which is easier and more refined.

It's a no contest especially when you mix in Jquery UI or knockoutJS