ASP.Net MVC in Action (Paperback)

~ Jeffrey Palermo (Author), Ben Scheirman (Author), Jimmy Bogard (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The Model-View-Controller pattern—universally known as MVC—provides a stable, testable approach to web application development by separating the major functions—or concerns—of an application into independently defined roles.

ASP.NET MVC in Action is a comprehensive guide to MVC-based development using this powerful framework. It offers a clearly-written introduction both to the ASP.NET MVC Framework and to the MVC approach. The focus is on creating real, maintainable web applications—so don't expect toy examples and short snippets. The authors lead you from first-use through real-life scenarios.

One of the key benefits of the MVC approach is introducing a high degree of testability to your applications and process. ASP.NET MVC in Action shows you how to test each piece of your ASP.NET application and how to introduce principles of test-driven development into your process.

Because the framework is completely pluggable, you'll learn how to work with external Inversion of Control containers like StructureMap, Windsor, and Spring.NET and open-source persistence layers like NHibernate. Throughout the book, the authors sprinkle in MvcContrib, an extremely useful tool that provides common extensions so you don't have to write them yourself.

Along the way, you'll benefit from the wide-ranging experience of the authors, who have extensive experience with ASP.NET, Monorail, and Ruby on Rails. This book assumes that you already know how to build a standard ASP.NET application and presents most examples in C#.

What's inside?

1. Getting started with the ASP.NET MVC Framework
2. The model in depth
3. The controller in depth
4. The view in depth
5. Routing
6. Customizing and extending the ASP.NET MVC Framework
7. Scaling the architecture for complex sites
8. Leveraging existing ASP.NET features
9. AJAX in ASP.NET MVC
10. Hosting and deployment
11. Exploring MonoRail and Ruby on Rails
12. Best practices
13. Recipes

What reviewers are saying

"Shows how to put all the features of ASP.NET MVC together to build a great application."

-From the Foreword by Phil Haack, Senior Program Manager, ASP.NET MVC Team, Microsoft

"This book put me in control of ASP.NET MVC."

-Mark Monster, Software Engineer, Rubicon

"Highly recommended for those switching from Web Forms to MVC."

-Frank Wang, Chief Software Architect, DigitalVelocity LLC

"I'd highly recommend this to anyone who is serious about building web applications with ASP.NET MVC."

—Jeremy Skinner, ASP.NET developer and technical proofreader of the book

"...does a good job of not only showing you what to do, but also provides cautionary words to avoid poor practices that may lead to maintenance issues on non-trivial applications."

—Venkat Subramanian, NoFluffJustStuff Blogs

"I really enjoyed ASP.NET MVC in Action and highly recommend it for a fresh look at the ASP.NET MVC Framework."

—David Hayden, MVP

"In the end [the authors] not only did an excellent job of putting together a great practical guide to ASP.NET MVC they also successfully embedded some subversive ALT.NET concepts that will hopeful make us all better developers. And at the end of the day that is a damn fine accomplishment."

—Bobby Johnson

"ASP.NET MVC in Action will guide you from your first project through advanced topics such as AJAX and deploying on suboptimal hosting environments. The writing style is clear and concise. Diagrams and code examples are abundant. I recommend it for anyone looking for a great resource for learning about or becoming a better user of the ASP.NET MVC framework."

—Nathan Stott, Partner and Software Engineer at Whiteboard-IT

"I'm very happy with this book. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in ASP.NET MVC. Getting the 'beyond the text' that comes with the CodeCampServer is just icing on the cake, truly."

—Chris Stewart, CompiledMonkey.com

"ASP.NET MVC in Action is a true masterpiece...The authors, Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman and Jimmy Bogard are all considered rock stars in the ASP.NET community and they have opened up the doors to their concert with ASP.NET MVC in Action."

—Mohammad Azam, Microsoft MVP

About the Author

Jeffrey Palermo is a software management consultant and the CTO of Headspring Systems in Austin, Texas. Jeffrey specializes in Agile coaching and helps companies double the productivity of software teams. Jeffrey is an MCSD.NET, Microsoft MVP, Certified ScrumMaster, Austin .Net User Group leader, AgileAustin board member, and an INETA speaker and Membership Mentor. He is an ASP.NET expert and has been working with Microsoft on the MVC framework since the initial prototype in March, 2007.

Ben Scheirman is a Principal Consultant with Sogeti in Houston, Texas. He studied computer science at the University of Houston and is a Certified ScrumMaster and Microsoft Certified Solution Developer. He enjoys speaking and blogging about Agile development topics in .NET.

Jimmy Bogard is a senior consultant with Headspring Systems in Austin, Texas. His focus is using .NET technologies together with Agile methodologies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications; 1 edition (September 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933988622
• ISBN-13: 978-1933988627
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #207,163 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Absolutely excellent!, November 7, 2009

By	Kaelin (Arkansas) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This book delivers the "how." Whereas so many books show the mechanics of MVC, this book shows you how to drive this implementation of the framework to it's limits. It's the difference between being taught the rules of football and being taught how to win a game; the difference between knowing how to turn on a light saber and knowing how to use the force.

Don't use this book for an intro to MVC. Use the free chapter of the nerd dinner book for that. That's a great intro. Use the web itself to research the mechanics of how the web works. Then pick up this book and be prepared to work *hard* chewing slowly and digesting each section as you let it change the way you think. Don't let the mere 350 pages fool you (when compared with other 600-700 page Goliaths); this book is content-rich. In the same way that the lessons of a truly great coach extend into so many non-sports areas of his/her players' lives, the ideas and knowledge expressed in this book extend well beyond ASP.Net MVC and push us forward into becoming better developers in any technology.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good..., September 23, 2009

By	Mark Phillips (NY, NY United States) - See all my reviews

I found the book very helpful. However, it is not a beginner's book. The authors have a lot of knowledge about MVC and how to effectively use it. But the reader has to dig into the downloaded source code to obtain a lot of that knowledge. I would have preferred a more detailed text instead.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have book if you want to develop ASP.NET MVC applications the right way!, September 18, 2009

By	Andrew Siemer "Andrew Siemer" (Lancaster, California, USA) - See all my reviews

The ASP.NET MVC framework was just released as a preview when I started to write my first book (ASP.NET 3.5 Social Networking). In the early days of design decisions for my book I was faced with the problem of building with the MVP pattern or the new MVC pattern/framework. At that time there was next to nothing regarding the use of the ASP.NET MVC framework (proper or improper).

Shortly after I got started with my project (which I chose to do in MVP) I was asked to do a review for the ASP.NET MVC in Action book. I gladly accepted and started to read as Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman, and Jimmy Bogard explored the world of ASP.NET MVC offerings. I thought that they did a very good job of describing how Microsoft meant you to use the new framework and a better job of describing how to break beyond the limitations of the current offerings. They go above and beyond to describe best practices early on.

I must say that this is one of the few books that I have ever read cover to cover so many times! With each review of the book I went through each chapter to find any updates. As this book was being written several new CTP's of the ASP.NET MVC framework were released. With each of the CTP releases came a new rendering of the book. It was quite fun to see how quickly things changed over the year that this book was written.

Finally having the final review in my hands and being so very familiar with it's content, I have to say that of all the books on the ASP.NET MVC framework the ASP.NET MVC in Action book should be at the top of your list for things to purchase in the upcoming months. At a quick glance this book covers all things relating to ASP.NET MVC and then some. This book is not just a regurgitation of MSDN or other resource as so many books are these days. Here are the chapter titles for this book:

-Getting started with the ASP.NET MVC Framework
-The Model in depth
-The Controller in depth
-Views in depth
-Routing
-Customizing and extending the ASP.NET MVC Framework
-Scaling the architecture to more complex sites
-Leveraging existing ASP.NET features
-AJAX in ASP.NET MVC (which includes coverage of jQuery!)
-Hosting and Deployment
-Exploring MonoRail and Ruby on Rails
-Best Practices
-Recipes

As you can clearly see from the above this is more than just the XYZ of ASP.NET MVC. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in breaking away from the pains of ASP.NET WebForms. This framework, especially with the help of this new book, makes programming for the web fun again!

Andrew Siemer ([...])
Teacher, Author, Engineer, Architect, Build Master, Scrum Master, Father of 6, Husband, ex Army Ranger