How do I get started with ASP.net MVC?

Question

I have experience in PHP, JSP/servelts and classic ASP, and I am trying to learn a bit about ASP.net MVC.

I figured out that www.asp.net is the website to go to get started.

But I am a little confused.

What all stuff exactly should I download to get started? What is the best IDE for this? Can I use Microsoft expression web? What all other stuff should I install? ASP.net Ajax? etc etc...

Should I learn asp.net before getting started with asp.net MVC or can I learn asp.net while learning asp.net MVC?

Answer 1

You need a version of the Visual Studio 2008 IDE, .NET Framework 3.5 and the ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate.

Answer 2

There a buttload of screencasts. Scott Hanselman did some great ones, and Stephen Walther has a whole blog for getting started on the framework.

ASP.NET MVC is extremely flexible. You can use whatever Javascript library you choose. jQuery is a great choice, and comes bundled with new projects now.

There are some concepts that carry over into ASP.NET MVC, (binding, user controls) but you should be able to pick them up independently. I think ASP.NET MVC should be a lot easier for you to simply "jump into" compared to Web Forms.

Answer 3

http://www.asp.net/mvc is the part of the site you want to stick to. You do not need to worry about ASP.NET Webforms or ASP.NET Ajax (which is only for webforms, MVC contains its own Ajax stuff, including jQuery, in the main MVC download). The MVC section of the site will give you all the getting started info you need.

Visual Web Developer Express 2008 is the best IDE to get started with. An easy way to install it (and the MVC stuff and requirements) is the Web Platform Installer.

Once you get going, read through Scott Guthrie's MVC posts and check out Phil Haacked's blog and Steven Walther's blog.

Answer 4

I don't have much Idea about ASP.NET MVC but to be able to work with it you need .NET 3.0 or higher .NET framework (Visual Studio 2008). http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f4e4ee26-4bc5-41ed-80c9-261336b2a5b6&displaylang=en#Requirements

"Should I learn asp.net before getting started with asp.net MVC or can I learn asp.net while learning asp.net MVC?" - I think you should have some basic knowledge of ASP.NET before working on MVC patterns.

ASP.NET MVC Usefull Links:

http://asp.net/mvc

http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/