Asp.Net MVC - New Project How to Begin?

Question

I’m new to asp.net and the mvc framework and I’m trying to learn by using the asp.net learn tutorials for Building a Contact Management Application in vb (http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/tutorial-29-vb.aspx).

The question I have is that I would like to begin a new project to start using mvc, but how do I start….

The tutorials start by putting data access and logic into controllers at first and then making the application loosely coupled by refactoring the code.

Is this the way to approach a new project or should I be making the application loosely coupled from the start?

I have followed the next iterations of the tutorials about TDD but couldn’t get my head around that just yet and wanted to really focus on cementing what I’ve picked up so far.

Any help or advice would be great.

Answer 1

I would probably check out the NerdDinner sample app and eBook. It provides some pretty good direction on the best way to do things. Link Here

Answer 2

Rob Conery has a good series of walkthroughs in regards to creating an asp.net mvc storefront application. I think they include TD stuff, but are done in C#. Here is the link.

Answer 3

Id recommend jumping straight into the sharp architecture stuff.

http://www.sharparchitecture.net/

Answer 4

I don't mean to scare you but I wasn't really productive until my 4th project.

Sure, I managed to hack out a few sites but if anyone looked at the code I wouldn't own up to it! :)

Nerd Dinner is certainly the place to start. I also found this site to be one of the most useful.

The trick I found was to, once Nerd Dinner was out the way, pick a pet project and get into it. Then, I picked another pet project and corrected the mistakes I made in the previous one. The 4th project actually resembled a well written site.

It's just because the paradigm for writing sites in mvc is so different that there is a pretty big learning curve. At least that's been our experiance here.

Answer 5

I also recommend S#arp all the time. I was novice to IoC, NHibernate, and MVC when I started, and S#arp was a big help. As for VB, S#arp can be used as binary assemblies; however this surely won't be as easy.

For VB/C# look here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1653895/should-i-learn-vb-net-or-c. I personally rarely answer VB questions, and I find C# lambda very helpful, so I can confirm many points there.

But if you only need to learn MVC, not to start real project, NerdDinner will do. Just don't take it as real-world best practices; it's to teach MVC stuff/features, not how to write well-designed and maintenable programs.