ASP.NET MVC implements the Model-View-Controller pattern on the ASP.NET runtime. It works well with open source projects like NHibernate, Castle, StructureMap, AutoMapper, and MvcContrib.

ASP.NET MVC in Action is a guide to pragmatic MVC-based web development. After a thorough overview, it dives into issues of architecture and maintainability. The book assumes basic knowledge of ASP.NET (v. 3.5) and expands your expertise. Some of the topics covered:

• How to effectively perform unit and full-system tests.

• How to implement dependency injection using StructureMap or Windsor

• How to work with the domain and presentation model

• How to work with persistence layers like NHibernate

The book's many examples are in C#.

"Shows how to put all the features of ASP.NET MVC together to build a great application."
-From the Foreword by Phil Haack, Senior Program Manager, ASP.NET MVC Team, Microsoft

"This book put me in control of ASP.NET MVC."
-Mark Monster, Software Engineer, Rubicon

"Of all the offerings, this one got it right!"
-Andrew Siemer, Principal Architect, OTX Research

"Highly recommended for those switching from Web Forms to MVC."
-Frank Wang, Chief Software Architect, DigitalVelocity LLC

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 7 Ratings

Excellent. Absolutely excellent! - 2009-11-08
Reviewer Rating:
This book delivers the "how." Whereas so many books show the mechanics of MVC, this book shows you how to drive this implementation of the framework to it's limits. It's the difference between being taught the rules of football and being taught how to win a game; the difference between knowing how to turn on a light saber and knowing how to use the force.

Don't use this book for an intro to MVC. Use the free chapter of the nerd dinner book for that. That's a great intro. Use the web itself to research the mechanics of how the web works. Then pick up this book and be prepared to work *hard* chewing slowly and digesting each section as you let it change the way you think. Don't let the mere 350 pages fool you (when compared with other 600-700 page Goliaths); this book is content-rich. In the same way that the lessons of a truly great coach extend into so many non-sports areas of his/her players' lives, the ideas and knowledge expressed in this book extend well beyond ASP.Net MVC and push us forward into becoming better developers in any technology.

Very Good... - 2009-09-23
Reviewer Rating:
I found the book very helpful. However, it is not a beginner's book. The authors have a lot of knowledge about MVC and how to effectively use it. But the reader has to dig into the downloaded source code to obtain a lot of that knowledge. I would have preferred a more detailed text instead.

Review by Philippe Vialatte - 2009-09-26
Reviewer Rating:
Since its first version, the philosophy of ASP. NET was to facilitate the migration of desktop applications developers to the world of web development. This approach, although allowing greater adoption of the framework, unfortunately shows its limits when you have a closer look at the architecture choices that have been made, especially when compared with other web development frameworks.

During 2008 and first quarter of 2009, Microsoft developed a new framework, based on the MVC design pattern (Model, View, Controller). This framework, which allows better control over the generated HTML, lighter pages, and easier unit testing, is the subject of this book.

The approach favored by the authors of this book is quite different from what we see generally in books targeting a given framework. Indeed, rather than dealing with the characteristics of the MVC framework in detail, reviewing each controls provided, the authors chose to tackle a "tougher" issue that is rarely addressed, namely how to write maintainable code in the long term.

After a brief introduction, chapter one takes us quickly into action, with a quick review of the default MVC application's code. This review gives us a short presentation of some of the main actors of the framework, namely the View, Routes and the Controller.

The following chapters will go into detail in the three frameworks initials. After a chapter devoted entirely to the model, including a introduction to Domain Driven Development (or DDD), which will be used throughout the book, the next chapter details controllers, and anything that can be applied to them (unit tests, customization of the various components, and filters). The fourth chapter of the book is centered on the view, including master pages, standard views and partial views.
Each of these chapters sometimes wanders off the "framework" path of the book, in the sense that they will introduce features that are not provided by the base assemblies of the framework, but by open source projects that make the produced code more maintainable .

The next chapter is devoted to the fourth musketeer of MVC, the Routing. This chapter contains a set of good practices for route design, and explains how to test that the routes are correctly mapped to the site pages.

From chapter 6, the book takes a much more interesting twist. Indeed, nearly all the following chapters deal with more advanced concepts, such as how to extend the framework, manage the longterm evolution of the original site, using ASP.NET server controls, or add non-intrusive dynamic behaviors using JQuery. These chapters (6 to 9) have the advantage of containing a lot of code and samples. Chapter 10 deals with the hosting of web sites under IIS, and difficulties related to versions prior to 7. Chapter 11 is quite an alien in this book (it might have been best placed a little earlier), because it presents Monorail and Ruby On Rails. Interesting for the general culture, but I do not see how this kind of introduction relates to the other chapters.

The last two chapters are of a good technical level, and expose a set of good practices, and some examples of specific development (autocompletion with JQuery, using another view engine...). All in all, I would have preferred more good practices, and fewer examples.

In conclusion, this book covers advanced concepts, which must be taken into account at a point in the life of every site that will grow. It is not a beginner oriented book, it assumes that readers already have significant experience of web development in general, and ASP.NET in particular. In a way, I think this book will take a little more time to be used to its fullest, but the subjects that are dealed with in the book have a more timeless quality than "just another web development framework" book, and will probably still be useful after one or two releases of the framework.
In this sense, this is not the book to buy if you want a step by step introduction to the MVC framework.
If you are a confirmed web developer, and you want to know what the MVC framework can do when pushed to its limits, how to customize it as well as which are the pitfalls to avoid, this book is for you.

No as good as it seems - 2009-11-04
Reviewer Rating:
This book is poorly written when compared to the other MVC ones. The authors consntantly talk about unrelated topics in the middle of an explanation... you can totally follow the book if you concentrate, but I just hate when people make things more complext when they don't need to be.

They should have remembered the kiss principle when writing that book.

probably good for the developer who is used to do open source software - 2009-10-17
Reviewer Rating:
I learned AST.NET Ajax, LINQ, advanced C#, Silverlight from the books published from mannnig publication. All books turned out quite good, and I could easily read quickly and after reading I could become expert developer of the field right away.

But this book turned out to be an exception. It is basically hard to read. The information presented is not carefly organazied. Possibly developer who are used to get the information in open source world may found OK, but most of the developers has lot more concern than
simply learn new technology. We want to learn things as quickly as possble, and saved time should be used to develop software.

I recommend developer to buy other books such as "Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework" from Apress instead of this one.

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