Debates, DNN, and MVC

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of years, you’ve probably heard that there’s a new kid on the ASP.NET block, called ASP.NET MVC. Likewise, you may have heard some folks suggest that the release of ASP.NET MVC (and the coming release of ASP.NET MVC 2) heralds the death of Web Forms. There have been passionate debates on the topic, which is one reason that none other than Scott Guthrie decided to post some thoughts on the subject of technical debates, and on Web Forms and MVC specifically.

Another contribution to the discussion came from Shaun Walker of DotNetNuke fame, about why DNN will not migrate to ASP.NET MVC from Web Forms (a wise decision IMO, not because there’s anything wrong with MVC, but because DNN has a huge investment in Web Forms that needn’t be thrown away), as well as some other thoughts on the topic.

In response, Rob Conery, formerly with the ASP.NET team, and now one of the folks behind TekPub, has offered free access to their Mastering MVC series on TekPub for 50 folks from the DNN community. Details can be found here.

Having used DNN for a number of sites (including my local homeowner’s association), I definitely appreciate the reasoning behind their decision to stick with Web Forms. At the same time, ASP.NET MVC is another great option for building applications on the ASP.NET platform, so I think it’s great that Rob is reaching out to the community to encourage more folks to learn about MVC.

To put it more succinctly…Community Rocks!