ASP.NET MVC tutorials

mrcheez

Recommend any good tutorials for the latest iteration of ASP.NET MVC with best practices etc?

Perhaps a kitchen-sink template might be good too.

I have several years of Web Forms but distinctly lacking in this area so need a bit of catching up.

mrcheez

Actually I recall looking at "Pro Dinner" before (https://prodinner.codeplex.com/)

Might have another gander through that

Aswerty

mrcheez wrote: »

Actually I recall looking at "Pro Dinner" before (https://prodinner.codeplex.com/)

Might have another gander through that

Looks a lot like the nerd dinner tutorial (but that tutorial is so out of date at this point). It looks to try pack a lot of information in and doesn't have that much documentation, I can't say I particularly like the look of it. Also it looks to be MVC 3 where the latest version is MVC 5. Not a huge amount has change between these versions but it'd make sense to start learning the newest version.

When learning MVC I used a book called "Pro ASP.NET MVC 3" which did a fantastic job describing the ins and outs of MVC including things like the URL routing engine. So I'd recommend a book because there is just so much information to take in that tutorials just won't do the framework justice. The book I used has a newer version called "Pro ASP.NET MVC 5"see http://www.apress.com/9781430265290. The book has two tutorials in it, one short and sweet one and one which is far more comprehensive.

As I have said to others in your position. Learning ASP.NET MVC is probably easier if you never used Web Forms because the two are massively different.

mrcheez

Cheers. I have experience in ASP / PHP as well as Web Forms, so it's probably more similar to the former. I'll be glad to be rid of web forms to be honest

Lemming

To add to what the guys above have said; asp.net has both some half-way decent tutorials and an active daily articles section with community involvement. The content of articles can vary quite wildly from basics to OWASP, to specific third-party tool use.

Also - and if you can afford the monthly sub - pluralsight has some excellent video tutorials, and has content on a lot of stuff, not just .net focused or language-centric.

mrcheez

Aswerty wrote: »

Looks a lot like the nerd dinner tutorial (but that tutorial is so out of date at this point). It looks to try pack a lot of information in and doesn't have that much documentation, I can't say I particularly like the look of it. Also it looks to be MVC 3 where the latest version is MVC 5.

Looks like the latest ProDinner is MVC 5 according to the release notes...

https://prodinner.codeplex.com/releases/view/121695

If there's no alternative single solution with good examples of MVC 5 / Code First / SOLID principles etc, it will probably do

mrcheez

Quick question regarding the ORM's to use, is Nhibernate more common than Entity Framework in commercial practice, or vice-versa?

I like the Code-First idea in Entity Framework, but it sounds like you need to implement workarounds if working with an existing database, or you want to manually update the database rather than relying on the automatic updates when the Model is changed.

So which of these is used more commonly in companies?

Aswerty

It's hard to not recommend EF at the moment. NHibernate has lost a lot of steam over the last few years, I expect this is down to a loss of contributors, and EF has been implementing feature after feature. NHibernate used to be touted as better for brownfield database and EF for greenfield. I'm not sure if this is still the case, I'd expect it is.

I wouldn't know what is more common in industry but I'd see EF as a requirement in job listing more so than NHibernate.

The biggest worry about NHibernate is that there is a sense that it is losing relevance and this puts people off using it which compounds the problem. Though it is a good mature ORM. If you don't like the XML mapping approach there is alternatives such as Fluent NHibernate which is a code first approach.

If you want something you can get up and running as quick as possible EF is definitely the better choice. If very high levels of configurability is what you want NHibernate is the better choice but this is only really of use if you are bolting an ORM onto a complex DB structure.

But just go with EF, it'll make your life easier.

mrcheez

I take it using "Areas" would be a good idea if you wanted to keep part of the MVC site exclusively accessible to authenticated users rather than public?