Drawbacks of WebFormsMVP?

Question

While ASP.NET MVC seems to be a viable technology praised by a lot of developers, I can't seem to find enough reasons to devote my energy and time for it. The main reason is that I don't find enough .NET jobs asking for it. Companies still use WebForms and it works just fine for them. I am not self employed where I get to choose the technology I like. I would rather use my time improve my skills in SilverLight, JQuery, Javascript, SQL, LINQ.. etc. Even Photoshop!

So I got interested in webformsmvp.com. I get to still use WebForms and use better testing methods. Anyone who has experience with it can tell me what they didn't like about it?

Answer 1

I've never used WebFormsMVP so I will make general statements to using 3rd party frameworks.

Like any 3rd party framework there are always drawbacks. For example I work as a consultant to a government agency and their Technical Standards department disallows any Open Source framework.

Depending on the maturity of WebFormsMVP you could spend a large amount of time having to re-write sections of your code when the underlying framework is upgraded or when new versions come out.

Support is another major reason why the framework might/might not be suitable. If the framework is from a major provider (Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, etc) you will generally find an active community that can assist when you encounter an issue.

Answer 2

I think you'll find that learning MVC will ultimately prove useful, as it really is a lot easier/cleaner than web forms, and more people will probably move in this direction eventually...

Third party frameworks, while useful, will probably never be as pervasive in the job market as some MS backed framework.

Answer 3

Choosing between WebForms and MCV is control over productivity. MVP for WebForms can be a nice way to go, because you can keep the productivity while adding testability. However, you need to do good research whether the webformsmvp.com library is right for you. Try to find out how well is it supported, how big is its user communicate and such. Abandoned open source projects can be a major pain, if you’ve used in a commercial product.

There are other MVP frameworks for ASP.NET, one of which comes from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices group. While the products from P&P are typically a bit more complex (because they're focused on Enterprise Development) you might take a look at the Composite Web Client Library.