Been meaning to blog about this for a long time now. Quite a while ago I came across this article on getting into ASP.NET. I'm sure a lot of people loved it. The average rating is 7 out of 9. Unfortunately for me, it wasnt what I was looking for. The application was a rather simple data-centric one and I happened to be looking for a good methodology on how to design a ASP.NET app from the ground up in a more OO manner (ie) once you get the object model done, how do you then map that to screens, navigation flow and all that. (The data tier is usually a breeze especially if you use OR-Mapping, but more about that later) and I was rather disappointed that it started out well with basic considerations and then jumped straight into designing the database.
I know there are times when data-centric will suffice and having started out as a DB person in my career, I will not criticise DB oriented apps right away, but it just doesnt seem right in this case. Im quite sold on OO and SOA now (but I do not consider DB's any less important) as the way you need to design business apps.
There are plenty of small sites with 2 page tutorials on how to design a product catalog DB and stick ASPX pages on top of that. I was hoping that there would be more from MS (especially in an article on MSDN) in the area I'm looking at. I know MS is moving away from UML, but a solid structured approach irrespective of notation would have been good (or is that not possible without resorting to UML at this point in time?)
Still, I guess the author had a certain aim while writing his article and it said what it was supposed to. As for me, I'll keep looking for a nice structured approach to designing ASPX web apps. (Probably all this info is scattered around in various white papers on MS and other sites).
Happy architecting /coding /hacking :-) !!
Life is getting interesting. I'm now involved with building some components as part of a fairly decent sized architecture framework for a project. I may even have to do some of the front end bits as there arent any front end gurus available at the moment.
Now in my mind, there are two elements to ASP.NET or any web building for that matter. Theres the componentry - the controls, structure etc and then theres the layout. IMHO,Classy GUI's need a very different skill set to your average web site developer. I cant think curved borders. All sites have 'square' themes in my head!! Thats what comes from working with VB6 forms and DB Tables for as long as i can remember! This is probably why I like Portal software and dont like creating themes and skins for them!
I'm leaning towards the UIP-Application Block type of approach where I will probably focus a lot on the Model and Controller and may just slap on some 'functional' views and then get some 'professional' assistance in crafting a better GUI. If the promise of the MVC model holds good, then this should work just fine. There no huge complex navigational requirements for the system I'm building anyway.
Wonder what the ASP.NET gurus out there will think about this? Any ideas/gotchas on this approach? Comments are welcome.