I recently got hired on as a new ASP.NET developer (C# code behind). When I arri
ID: 651496 • Letter: I
Question
I recently got hired on as a new ASP.NET developer (C# code behind). When I arrived, I was told that they were moving to MVC 4, and so I bought two books on that. However, the other day I learned that they are NOT using Razor, but using WebForms. Most of the results via Google returned articles from before the WebForms view engine was apparently selectable as an option instead of Razor, but my question is this:
Is it possible to learn MVC through WebForms, and not Razor? By possible, I mean is it "worth the time", or should I stick with Razor (as covered in both of my books) and slowly adapt that knowledge to WebForms?
Are there any drastic changes that need to be understood when learning MVC from the WebForms perspective?
Thank you for your time.
Explanation / Answer
If the culture, work environment, and boss are all acceptable, I wouldn't worry too much about it for two reasons:
If your development team is progressive enough to use MVC 4 and .NET 4, then they will probably discover the benefits of the Razor view engine very soon and you'll write new views with the Razor syntax in the near future. [Remember ASP.NET MVC supports the use of both the Razor and WebForms views in the same project with the default configuration.]
With the advent of many exceptional MV* JavaScript frameworks, the traditional ASP.NET MVC view (and consequently view engine) is becoming less and less relevant. For example, we're using Knockout on my current project, and I can honestly say that it wouldn't break my heart if my boss insisted on Web Forms views. It would almost make no difference at all. The important code resides in the Knockout view model.