Converting ASP.NET web site to MVC2

Question

I have my existing web site developed using ASP.NET. It's college management system. Now I need to redevelop it on MVC2. What all changes do I need to do? I am little bit aware of MVC and have done some exercises also. Thing I know is I can keep my database intact but there will be massive changes at other places. WHat will be the better way to minimize the changes?

Answer 1

MVC is a very different concept from event-oriented WebForms. There's good chance you will have to redo the frontend completely.

Try to find out if there is anything resembling data access layer and the business logic layer. If so, you can keep them (at least partially) and reuse their methods.

However, if the current application is not well structured and looks like a giant code blurb (with no layers, parts of the code talking to any other part at will, page methods going directly to the database etc.) it may have to be redone entirely.

If the application is now heavily relies on data-bound controls, you're screwed. You will have to recreate a lot of functionality by hand.

Answer 2

You should be able to refactor the middle tier (if you're using a multi-tier approach) into controller/model while keeping the UI intact. Once you've done that, throw away your UI and write a proper View. Try using LINQ-To-Sql for the backend.