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I realise this might be a little vague but I honestly don't know where else to ask. I have some history with PHP and I am trying to teach myself ASP.NET MVC3.
While I can find a LOT of source material on syntax and tutorials on various parts. I've started it off and I've got quite a bit going but I'm finding it a bit difficult to figure out exactly how to design the whole thing with regards to where to put things and I'm not entirely certain who I can ask or where I can find these things out?
The project I'm working on, in an attempt to teach myself is a form of online rpg game site. I've got user registration and log in, I wrote a custom membership provider to fit that to my existing database structure. But the trouble I'm having knowing where to do database lookups and how to store data etc. For example, let's say you log in, you have a certain amount of gold. On the right side of the status bar on the _layout page it will always display this value. Where do you look this up? How do you remember it? In the controller? Which controller? Etc etc.
Can anyone maybe recommend either a good set of advanced tutorials or some kind of forum where this can be discussed?
Thanks!
I learned everything i know from:
Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC 3
ScottGu's Blog -> awesome blog entries on mvc 3
Must see the Music Store Tutorial App
Check out a great book by Steve Sanderson - Ive used the previous two editions to get me upto speed with MVC.
Pro ASP.NET MVC 3
If your looking to use Entity Framework then I can also recommend;
Programming Entity Framework
The MSDN and ASP.NET sites have a LOT to offer on MVC3. I would also suggest buying the two MVC3 books by Phil Haack and Steve Sanderson.
http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/getting-started-with-aspnet-mvc3
http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/overview/creating-a-mvc-3-application-with-razor-and-unobtrusive-javascript
http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/getting-started-with-ef-using-mvc/creating-an-entity-framework-data-model-for-an-asp-net-mvc-application
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg416514%28v=vs.98%29.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2011/03/17/asp-net-mvc-3-roundup-of-tutorials-videos-labs-and-other-assorted-training-materials.aspx
Those are all good links and tutorials. In addition, you are going to want to have a separate database for your data vs. your Authentication and Authorization. This will allow decoupling and better security. You should be storing data in a database, and then the model will hold access to that database through a DAL (Data Access Layer) usually with the controller holding an instantiated repository of the DAL. In this sense the controller can build objects from the model (and thereby from the database) and then send them to the view through strongly typed objects for you to use in a User Interface.
Nerd Dinner is a pretty good sample of the whole picture, you can download the sample code and play with it.
http://nerddinner.codeplex.com/
The problem I find is a lot of examples don't use best practices for MVC in favour of simplicity and ease of reading in tutorials. So I'll outline some of the things I've found out the hard way and that work for me.
Personally from what I've found is your controller should be responsible for handling information via ViewModels to act as Data Transfer Objects (DTOs) between your business logic and your views, and that's all they should have in them. I choose to never have business logic in the controller and instead opt for a series of service classes designed to deal with their own group of responsibilities (IoC takes care of most concerns the Services may have).
This is done to keep the business logic DRY and to make it easier should you decide to try making a mobile version of your site later, or maybe expose a public WebService/API to your data.
The views should each use ViewModels specifically meant for each view, and these views should ONLY consist of primitive types or other view models. Never use a data entity from your ORM directly, though I'll be honest I have been known to break my own rule on this when it comes to views that only display information, but I usually pay for it later. Validation rules imposed on your data model are not necessarily applicable to a form and data loaded on your entity may not be relevant to your view either. ORM's that support Lazy Loading complex data entities can cause havoc with some VERY useful 3rd party libraries you can use in MVC like MiniProfiler and Glimpse, not to mention other issues when it comes to rendering these objects in forms for posting back later. So try to stick to flat ViewModels if possible.
I typically name my ViewModels according to their use. so my Register page may use a model called AccountsRegisterViewModel. However when I postback I usually use a different model called AccountsRegisterFormModel. This is because many times there is information I need to pass to render in the view but I really don't care about it (nor will it be present in most cases) on the action that accepts my postback. Also, MVC requires you to disambiguate your actions that use the same name via different parameters so using different view models helps there. For example CreateAccount() to show the account creation page and CreateAccount() that accepts your submission from the form. Though you can explicitly change where each form posts, the main focus with MVC is convention over configuration so I try not to change where forms post back to.
For your specific example of showing relevant information (Gold balance) you're likely going to want to create a Child Action with it's own view that would be responsible for doing it's own data access, or if you want to try your hand at ajax, have the balance be something handled in a smiple partial view that makes a call to a public action that returns JSON.
Those are the practices I've found have worked for me so far.
I want to make one mvc3 application which is student management.
I've seen some open source projects.
They have used solution structure like core,data serve rice.
is there any reason to use structure like this?
Usually it is a good a good idea to keep things separated.
By that I mean not mixing up business logic with database management code and having non-UI code in the view files.
This makes it a lot easier for others to understand the code you have written. I also helps you, when you get back to some project after some time to make improvements or correct errors.
I hope this answered your question, if not shot again.
Edit: I found this link explaining how it is done in the MVC framework.
Use layered architecture where you isolate each layer by using the Separated Interface pattern. For the database, use Repository pattern (easiest way to archive that is to use a ORM like nhibernate).
Use an inversion of control container to reduce coupling (with the help of interfaces) and make it easier to handle dependencies between classes.
As stated in the previous answers, you should separate your logical tiers into a minimum of BusinessLogic (Entities,validation,etc..), Data(your favorite ORM), and presentation (MVC).
However, if you are just starting out it may be a little daunting to incorporate all of the more advanced concepts of a SOLID architecture.
Separating logical tiers doesn't always have to mean separate projects. The standard MVC3 template demonstrates this with the "Models" folder. Any entity added to this will be under the namespace Myproject.Models. Later you could re-factor the code in the Models folder into a separate dll,add a reference, and as long as the namespace was still Myproject.Models the MVC app will continue to work.
The same thing could be done for your Data Access layer!
If you're just starting out I would recommend developing your app in the MVC project and separating your DAL and Business Layers with a Folder (Namespace). Once your application is working you can re-factor as needed.
Asp.net MVC 3 preview 1 was released at the end of last month. Are there any new features you are excited about or any features you would like to see before it is fully released?
Full support for Controllers with Generic Parameters
public GenericController<SomeType> : Controller
Generic controllers are quite possibly the greatest MVC timesaver if your doing a lot or business CRUD. There are so many similarities between the Add methods of almost every MVC project that it makes sense to abstract these operations out in a Controller that fits all scenarios.
Right now its a little hacky to create a generic controller. The MVC engine always gets the name wrong (GenericCo vs. Generic) and without full support plugin and libraries that interact with controllers just fall over when they encounter a generic one.
Make Dropdowns easier to work with
As a professional MVC tag watcher I've noticed that working with dropdowns is one of the most repeated questions on SO. The amount of Dropdown questions is a strong indication that something should be done to make it easier or less ... complex?
make checkbox list easy to work with
add T4MVC to the official release
add official helpers for OData
support one javascript library either MS Ajax or jQuery(preferably)
I wish they can add something to help developer to migrate their previous ASP.NET WebForms application.
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Some people consider WordPress a blogging platform, some think of it as a CMS, some refer to WordPress as a development framework. Whichever it is, the question still remains. Is WordPress MVC compliant?
I've read the forums and somebody asked about MVC about three years ago. There were some positive answers, and some negative ones. While nobody knows exactly what MVC is and everybody thinks of it in their own way, there's still a general concept that's present in all the discussions.
I have little experience with MVC frameworks and there doesn't seem to be anything about the framework itself. Most of the MVC is done by the programmer, am I right? Now, going back to WordPress, could we consider the core rewrite engine (WP_Rewrite) the controller? Queries & plugin logic as the model? And themes as the view? Or am I getting it all wrong?
Thanks ;)
Wordpress itself is not architected in MVC, but one can build very MVC oriented themes and plugins within the framework. There are several tools which can help:
WordPress MVC solutions:
Churro: # wordpress.org/extend/plugins/churro
Tina-MVC: # wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tina-mvc
Plugin Factory: # wordpress.org/extend/plugins/plugin-factory
MVCPress: http://mozey.wordpress.com/2007/01/22/mvcpress-screenshots/#comment-3634 (abandoned, but interesting ideas)
MVC threads on WordPress.org Ideas and Trac:
http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic/mvc-plugin-framework
http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic/complete-reestructuring
http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic/rewrite-wordpress-using-mvc
http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic/wordpress-theme-revamp (more on XSL than MVC)
http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12354 (on MVC in widgets)
Wordpress is kinda-sorta MVC. If anything it is a pull-type MVC layout, where the View 'pulls' data from the model. It does this in a very proceedural way, instead of using lots of different objects, but this actually makes the front end templates easier to write in a lot of ways.
This also gives the views some degree of controller logic (thus the kinda-sorta MVC).
Lets run this down:
Wordpress gets a URL. The wordpress core acts as a controller and determines what initial queries to run of the database, and by extension, what view should be loaded (category view, single post or page view, etc). It then packages that INTIAL query response and sends it to the view file.
That view file CAN be a strict display only file OR it can request additional information/queries beyond the built in one. This is the pull-type of the MVC, where the view pulls data from the model instead of the controller 'pushing' data from the model into the view.
Thus, when the view sees code to load a sidebar or widget area, it asks for that information. However, what widgets should be there is determined by the controller, which looks at the model for what widgets are in the sidebar, and then selects those that are set to show on the current page, and returns those to the view.
That each part of that isn't an object doesn't make this any less MVC. You can alter WP core without (necessarily) altering anything about a theme. Similarly, as long as you use built in functions like 'get_pages()' then the model and the database tables could change as long as those functions still returned the right data. So, the model is independent of the view, and the controller is independent as well (except when the view adds controller logic to do more than the core normally does).
While you COULD have a model object holding a number of methods and stuff like WPModel::get_pages('blah blah'), and contain everything that way, there is still fundamental separation of concerns.
View: template files
Controller: WP core
Model: the various functions that handle specific data handling.
As long as the names, arguments, etc, stay the same (or just have new ones added) then separation of concerns is maintained and one can be altered without disturbing the others.
It isn't a super-clean version of MVC, (especially when hooks get involved), but at a basic level it starts there.
And being proceedural about it isn't a bad thing IMO. A request from a website is pretty inherently proceedural: it is a process with a clear beginning and end, and just needs a procedure to process the request, get data, package it, then die. You can set up those steps with objects and object methods and OOP layouts (which would make some things easier) or you can just write alot of function calls and separate them out that way. Class members like private variables are lost that way but depending on the needs of the application... you might not care.
There is no one-grand-way to do development, and WP sits at like 20% of websites so it is doing something right. Probably something to do with not making people have to learn/memorize complex class hierarchies to get the database to answer the question 'what pages are child of page x?' and deal with that data. Could you make it that easy with OOP? yes, but if Joomla is any example of how hard it is to implement a complex custom website with OOP, then WP is FAR easier and quicker, and time is money.
As already mentioned in the comments, MVC is an architectural design pattern, not a specific framework, and no, Wordpress doesn't follow the MVC pattern.
There is a separation of views (templates) from the programming logic, but only in the frontend, not in the admin panel and a general separation of views and application logic is not inevitably MVC. An implementation of the MVC pattern usually assumes some kind of object oriented programming paradigm behind it and Wordpress is mainly implemented in a procedural way, with plain SQL queries in the PHP functions, therefore not having an actual model either.
One of the topics that periodically crops up in discussions as it relates to WordPress is the idea of WordPress and MVC.
But the thing is that MVC is not the silver bullet of web development that we try to make it out to be. Yes, it’s an awesome design pattern, and I personally think that it fits the web application model like a glove, but not every framework or platform implements that design pattern.
Case in point: WordPress is not MVC.
And that’s okay. I think we need to leave the desire of trying to shoehorn it into our projects aside especially when the pattern WordPress provides is not only sufficient, but works well when leveraged correctly.
“But I Love MVC!”
So do I! In fact, I spent the last year working on a project that more-or-less mimicked the MVC architecture.
A high-level example of MVC.
A high-level example of MVC.
For example:
Views were implemented using templates
Controllers were implemented by a combination of using function names like create, read, update, destroy, delete, and so on (even though these functions were hooked into the WordPress API
Models were functions also were called to validate and verify data prior to serializing the data. Again, this required that certain functions be hooked into WordPress to achieve the desired result.
Finally, a set of rewrite rules gave the application a clean set of predictable URLs in the format of /people/update/1 or /people/all.
What Pattern Does WordPress Implement?
WordPress implements the event-driven architecture (of which there are several variations such as the Observer Pattern).
In short, you can conceptually think of this as the following:
Things happen when WordPress is processing information.
You can register your own function to fire when these things happen.
Not too complicated, is it?
A high-level example of event-driven patterns
A high-level example of event-driven patterns
When you begin to think in terms of the paradigm in which it works rather than trying to make it work the way that you want it to work, it’s liberating. It helps to solve problems much more easily.
The bottom line is this: WordPress implements the event-driven design pattern, so even if you end up trying to implement MVC, you’re still going to have to utilize the hook system.
If you’re not careful, you can end up trying to craft the perfect architecture without actually getting your work done, and thus end up finding yourself so high up in the atmosphere of software that you’ve effectively become an architecture astronaut.
So You’re Saying Avoid Design Patterns?
Not at all! Design Patterns serve a purpose because, above all else, they basically give us solutions to previously and commonly solved problems. Use them!
But the point I’m trying to make is that we don’t need to try to force things to fit pattern just because we like the pattern. That’s not their purpose. Instead, leverage the primary pattern that your platform of choice implements – in our case, it’s an event-driven pattern – and then implement patterns where they fit (such as dependency injection or something like that).
Otherwise, it’s like trying to put your foot in a glove.
Courtesy (and totally copied :P) from : http://tommcfarlin.com/wordpress-and-mvc/
Just to update this with more recent information for people hitting this from search engines - the wp-mvc plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-mvc/ goes a long way to creating a mvc framework for plugin development. You can find out more here: http://wpmvc.org/documentation/70/tutorial/
Just to add to the list of options, (I'm admittedly biased as the author,) swpMVC is a fully featured, lightweight MVC framework, inspired by Rails, Sinatra, Express, and FuelPHP. It's thoroughly documented, and while I have used and enjoyed wp-mvc, I wanted something where the models were able to populate views themselves, including form controls for interacting with said models.
I put this together largely to reduce the amount of controller code required to put together an app on top of WordPress, and the result is a very fast and effective framework that runs inside WordPress. The models are based on PHP Activerecord and 8 models are included for existing WordPress data types, including Post, PostMeta, User, UserMeta, Term, and a few more. Modeling data is very easy thanks to the activerecord library, and I've enjoyed working with this framework immensely thus far.
Also ships with underscore PHP and PHP Quick Profiler (as seen in FuelPHP.)
RokkoMVC is a micro MVC framework built especially for WordPress. The project is meant to simplify AJAX functionality in WordPress applications, as well as bringing in all the other benefits of using models, views, and controllers to your theme.
I had a bash recently at creating a plugin that makes use of a simple view-controller system, and quite liked the results, so I separated the template stuff out to its own repo. It offers object-based controllers, passing variables locally to PHP templates, template fragments (templates within templates) and components (template fragments with their own sub-controller). All in two tiny classes!
Of course, I wrote this code thinking that no other WP developer had considered the problem before ;-).
It's far from mvc, there is no kinda-sorta thing like some people say, it's either MVC or not... The fact that you write logic on the view level doesn't qualify it as a mvc framework. The reason people use it - it's easy to learn, you don't need to be hardcore php programmer, they're lazy.
Seems like every project I'm on uses a Model View Controller architecture, and that's how I roll my own projects. Is there an alternative? How else would one create an application that has persistent storage and a user interface?
MVC has been around for a while. It's a time tested and proven pattern. Many frameworks leverage the MVC Pattern. Martin Fowler has deconstructed the MVC into: Supervising Presenter and Passive View.
Architect Christopher Alexander said it best:
Each pattern describes a problem which
occurs over and over again in our
environment and then describes the
core of the solution to that problem,
in such a way that you can use this
solution a million times over, without
ever doing it the same way twice.
I'm not sure why you would want to move from MVC. Is there a problem you are encountering that MVC does not eloquently solve? To give you a better answer we need to know more about your problem domain.
Things to take into account when considering patterns/architecture: If you are building something with a Myspace type architecture you'll need a robust architecture (MVC). If you are creating a simple crud interface via the web - almost anything will do.
For .Net Web forms (I am assuming web, since you didn't say thick or web client) which is not MVC, it was a nightmare maintaining them. Web Forms applications that lived more that a couple years tended to become big balls of mud. Even then developers discovered ways to use MVC with web forms.
Ironically, the lack of MVC architecture in ASP.NET web forms was one of the driving complaints that lead to the development of ASP.Net MVC framework.
From experience if you don't use some MVCesk approach, your solutions become hard to maintain and bloated. These applications will die a slow painful death.
If your solutions are small one-off projects, the by all means throw something together. Heck there are tools that will generate everything from the screens to the data access layer. Whatever works to get the job done.
Classic CRUD apps built using tools like VB6 and Delphi have user interfaces, persistent storage and don't use MVC. Most of them used data aware controls linked directly to database fields
Couple of links comparing various MV* patterns which might be useful:WPF patterns : MVC, MVP or MVVM or…? & MVC, MVP and MVVM
Look into MVP model view presenter.
User interface is View and an application will always have a model and the bridge between the two is Controller. The whole MVC is nothing special as this is how the things will be always.
At the most you can get rid of Controller and have your view talk to your model but you loose the flexibility.
I've developed an alternative to ASP.NET MVC. You get the same loose coupling and separation of concerns but the difference is in how you go about building your projects.
I have a couple of videos on my blog, source code for the framework, a sample project and a few VS.NET add-ins (New Project item, New Builder and New View).
Builder for ASP.NET
Some key differentiating Features are
1. Templates are just html - no code mixed with templates
2. Templates are thus reusable across views and Web site designers can design templates in their design tool of choice
3. Strongly typed code (no ViewData and stuff) so you get intillisense, compile time checking, F12 navigation etc.
4. You build pages as compositions of views rather than an inside-out approach
5. View can be treated as "real" classes.
6. Everything is complied so no run-time compilation
Quite a few other differentiating factors as well.
In theory :
MVC is a proved technology and yada-yada-yada, and it is ideal for websites.
But in a real case:
A serious project that use MVC required a framework, hence you are following a framework with all their limiting and restrictions. So, at this point, the specific implementation of MVC is rule and not a simple "guideline".
Also MVC fail miserably for websites when it is about to connect to the model other than simple POST/GET, it fail with xml asynchronism and it fail with ajax. (*)
(*) exist some patch but a design must be clear and functional and if you need to "patch it" then it is neither clear nor functional.
Personally i think that the main problem with MVC is that it put so much effort in the Controller, where most project use not more that 5 lines for the controller part.
ps: Most "well done" MVC projects are 3-tier project.
ps2: MVC excluding some framework, is just a buzzterm, IS NOT A SERIOUS TERMINOLOGY and it is reflexed in the group of "interpretation of mvc".