The ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework is the latest evolution of Microsoft's ASP.NET web platform. It provides a high-productivity programming model that promotes cleaner code architecture, test-driven development, and powerful extensibility, combined with all the benefits of ASP.NET 4. In this third edition, the core model-view-controller (MVC) architectural concepts are not simply explained or discussed in isolation, but are demonstrated in action. You'll work through an extended tutorial to create a working e-commerce web application that combines ASP.NET MVC with the latest C# language features and unit-testing best practices. By gaining this invaluable, practical experience, you'll discover MVC's strengths and weaknesses for yourself - and put your best-learned theory into practice. The book's authors Steve Sanderson and Adam Freeman have both watched the growth of ASP.NET MVC since its first release. Steve is a well-known blogger on the MVC Framework and a member of the Microsoft Web Platform and Tools team. Adam started designing and building web applications 15 years ago and has been responsible for some of the world's largest and most ambitious projects.You can be sure you are in safe hands. What you'll learn * Gain a solid architectural understanding of ASP.NET MVC 3, including basic MVC * Explore the entire ASP.NET MVC Framework * See how MVC and test-driven development work in action * Capitalize on your existing knowledge quickly and easily through comparison of features in classic ASP.NET to those in ASP.NET MVC * Learn about the latest security and deployment issues, including those related to IIS 7 Who this book is for This book is for web developers with a basic knowledge of ASP.NET and C# who want (or need) to start using the new ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework. Table of ContentsPart 1 1. The Big Idea 2. Getting Ready. 3. Your First MVC Application 4. The MVC Pattern 5. Essential Language Features 6. Essential Tools for MVC 7. SportsStore I OCo A Real Application 8. SportsStore II OCo Navigation & Cart 9. SportsStore III - Administration. Part 2 10. Overview of MVC projects 11. URLs, Routing & Areas 12. Controllers & Actions 13. Filters 14. Controller Extensibility 15. Views 16. Model Templates 17. Model Binding 18. Model Validation 19. Unobtrusive Ajax 20. jQuery. Part 3.21. Security. 22. Authentication & Authorization 23. Deployment"
This is a good guide to ASP.NET MVC. It's divided into three parts: Introduction, Details, and "Delivering Successful MVC Projects".
The first part in particular is excellent, as it follows a hands-on approach with the creation of a simple e-commerce application. There's excellent emphasis on unit-testing; almost every feature you add has unit-tests listed right behind it.
The second part delves into the details of the main MVC building blocks. Most of these were touched upon in part 1, and part 2 does a good job of covering the details.
The third part is rather short, briefly covering security, authentication, authorization and deployment. It mainly provides information on how these topics relate to ASP.NET MVC. Detailed web security and deployment knowledge have to be pursued elsewhere.
I had two main problems with the book: 1. There are several confusing errors and omissions. For example, at one point during the development of the sample e-commerce application, the authors instruct you to update the data models using an EDMX file (Entity Framework)--except that there's no EDMX file or auto-generated models, because the book actually instructs you to hand-code the data models earlier.
2. While part one was entertaining due to the constant involvement, part two suffers from a lack of focus, as you create several different toy applications to experiment with different features. I think it would have benefited greatly from an approach similar to that of the first part, where there's only one application to integrate features into, so that you can see how they combine to produce a sum greater than their parts.
Overall, I liked it, and I think it serves as a good introduction to and overview of ASP.NET MVC.
This book is amazing. For a beginner on ASP.NET MVC, this might be a little overhead but it really covers how the framework processes and goes a lot under the covers.
I especially liked the first half of the book and the emphasis the authors placed on testing. Finally a book that demonstrates the way to do it, rather than just saying, "and of course you'd want to do testing here..." I got bogged down in the middle of the book (and set it aside for several months) as it gets into some pretty technical stuff and ditches the tutorial of the first half. Understandable, I guess, due to the nature of the content. I'm sure it will serve as a good reference...if I ever get to program a site using MVC.
An excellent book to learn MVC3. The authors' style is readable and engaging and there are tons of code samples to follow. I think that they may have addressed the topics of dependency injection and Entity Framework a bit too early. They are essential topics to building a flexible MVC app, but can be a bit daunting for the newbie (OK, the book says "pro" in the title, but chapter 4 felt a bit early).
If you're a developer looking to learn the newer web technologies, this book lays a good foundation for you to start working with MVC3.
An excellent book about MVC3. I am giving it four stars because there were quite a few typos and coding errors that I easily solved. But regardless, this book teaches you a lot and shows you many great tips regarding MVC3 and unit testing your code. If you want to be up and running pretty quickly, then this is a book for you.
Adam clearly has a lot of experience with MVC. His prior book on MVC 2 had some great code for writing "wizard" pages which I wish he had kept for this edition. This book is still full of great code and insight into using the technology.