ASP.Net with MVC framework better than ASP.Net? Is it true?

When developers start to build new web projects they face two options- either using ASP.NET MVC framework or ASP.NET web forms. These days, more and more companies are however choosing the MVC based framework to revise their existing sites significantly or to develop new ones. The framework has a multitude of benefits as well as technical goodies which have made it the darling among the developers.

MVC, short for Model-View-Controller is an architectural pattern that helps in division of an application into three basic components- the controller, the model and the view. This framework is a great alternative to the web forms pattern when creating applications since it is highly testable as well as lightweight presentation framework. It comes integrated with all current .NET features like authentication based on membership as well as master pages. Most developers are quite familiar with the pattern. Here is a low-down on the advantages that the MVC based framework offers over the web forms.

Separating application tasks or concerns- A huge advantage in the framework is that it clearly separates Business Logic, Data, Model, UI, test-driven development and testability. Core contracts of the framework are interface-based for which mock objects may be used for the testing. These mock objects are simulated objects imitating the behaviours of application’s actual objects. The application can be unit-tested without making the controllers run, making the testing more flexible as well as fast. Any framework may be used for the testing.

Clientcaching- Silverlight makes this available to us. When we integrate Silverlight full advantage may be taken of the feature. This leads to faster application loading; in fact some part of processing may be done through web browsers, this makes the execution of client site as well as the server side a lot faster. You can even integrate JQuery and MVC so that the code written runs in browser, taking away a huge load away from the server.

HTML size- In ASP.NET there is a huge problem in the HTML size of view state as well as controls. All data rendered is stored by view state with the final result being the final HTML getting too large. For those on slow internet connections, the loading time will be slow as well as delayed. The current framework takes care of that problem since the view state concept is absent here.

Supporting ASP.NET routing- This URL-mapping component is very powerful, letting you build applications with searchable and comprehensible URLs. Through this there is no need for URLs to include extensions of file-names since the design supports patterns of URL naming and these work good enough for SEO or search engine optimization as well as REST or representational state transfer addressing.

Pluggable as well as extensible framework- The design of MVC’s components makes them easily customizable or replaceable. Individual view engine, action-method parameter serialization, URL routing policy as well as other components can be plugged in. The use of DI or Dependency Injection and IOC or Inversion of Control container models is also supported. With DI you can inject objects into classes and it does not rely on class for creation of object itself. The testing is made easier by the condition imposed that when an object is required by another object then another object should be sourced from an external source like configuration file.

The biggest advantage of ASP.NET MVC platform is that it contains all the features as well as advantages of .NET since the basis is the same for both. However, some disadvantages are that understanding codes during the process of customization may not be an easy process. Another problem is the cost- the start-up costs are much higher in the MVC platform when compared to the web form based one. But looking at the benefits that are enjoyed by the developers and the end result, this is but a small price to pay for. You can get in touch with a asp.net application development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

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Some ASP.Net Pitfalls to Know About

ASP.Net, the server-side Web application framework, which is exclusively designed for Web development as well as production of dynamic Web pages, has gained a lot of popularity of late. However, the framework is not absolutely without the blues. There are a lot of factors that keep on cropping up while using ASP. NET and these factors can well be stated as pitfalls of ASP.NET. Hence, it is necessary to be well informed about these disadvantages as that will help the developers in the long run. Let us discuss some of these drawbacks.

Cost

A standard .NET development team comprising of three to four developers requires a comprehensive setup along with licensed version of all the major server-side software packages to run things efficiently. Naturally, it will involve a fair amount of cost and hence, companies which have just started operating with a shoestring budget many at times do not find putting up an ASP.Net set up due to financial constraints. However, one can control the financial problems by using certain development tools that come free of cost. Some of these tools include C# compiler.

Restricted control over HTML

The outputs from HTML generally do not succeed in complying with the web standards or when it comes to making a formidable use of CSS or Cascading Style Sheets. Server controls also generate unpredictable as well as complex values of ID, which are hard to access by using JavaScript.

A Large amount of data in ‘view’ state

This application framework brings in a huge amount of data in ‘view’ state, thus frustrating the site visitors to a large extent. Besides, this phenomenon also results in slower and lazy response time along with increasing the bandwidth demand of a particular server.

Leaky Abstraction

Web forms have a tendency of hiding HTML and HTTP whenever it is possible. As and when the users try to implement various customized behaviors, they quite often result in considerable abstraction, and this forces the users into using more traditional post track methods when generating a desired HTML.

Limited Testing Support

The firmly coupled or paired architecture of this application framework is considered unsuitable when it comes to unit testing as well as integration testing.

An extremely complicated page life cycle

A majority of users are unable to use the page life cycle in an effective way, just because it is pretty difficult controlling the runtime hierarchy or when it comes to finding a proper event handler for an execution.

Besides, though the page life cycles of this application are well documented, the presence of too many events makes it extremely hard for the developers to spot out the exact place and process of implementing the codes.

It is not suitable for web RAD

ASP.Net is an extraordinary platform for Windows application development. Still, it tends to lack in terms of competence while making the web behave like WinForms. For users who are looking to web-enable their .NET based clients or applications ASP.Net is the best answer. Again, for those who are designing a prototype of any social networking site, the framework is just like a curse. It simply doesn’t work.

Apart from all these issues, the ASP application framework is often plagued by other relatively less important or minor issues like when the users click on the ‘back’ button of the browser, it might not every time take them back to the earlier stage or level. Also, updates on the dynamic pages can at times cause a substantial amount of trouble for the users, especially while bookmarking a particular application state.

In spite of all these shortcomings, the application framework enjoys a considerable extent of popularity amongst the developers and programmers, due to its amazing capacity of encapsulating the markups of a page or a part of it and rendering it successfully in a dynamic way. You can get in touch with a custom .net development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

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.Net For Online Businesses -Is It Worth It?

.Net is actually an OOP or Object Oriented Programming model that has been introduced to assist the developers specifically in creating internet-based distribution system, which is an extremely important aspect for online business. The model or platform provides a framework that is independent of platforms.

It also enables the developers to quickly design or develop, deploy as well as manage various web based applications, XML Web service applications and smart client applications. This platform independent quality or feature of .Net helps the developers in quickly building, deployment, and managing various web-based as well as smart client applications along with various XML web services applications. This platform-independence feature also enables the businesses, especially the ones that are carried out online, to quickly as well as seamlessly integrate their systems, devices, or information, thereby using the end users along with customers to collaborate as well as communicate in an effective way.

Let us discuss some of the features that make .Net an indispensable part of online business.

.Net is designed to support side-by-side execution of codes and this helps to resolve various versioning problems. This particular feature also helps in solving the issue of overwriting of shared component by letting multiple versions of a particular component that are to be installed. This implies that the .Net developers do not need to maintain a backward compatibility just because there are different applications that can use various versions of a particular shared component.

As a particular application instantiates any new component, the directory of the applications as well as the other predefined locations pertaining to the component are scanned. As soon as the component is located, all the information regarding the component is cached for use in the future. This decentralized registration of the components helps in minimizing the probability of these components interfering with one another. This also reduces the need of registering as well as unregistering the components. Therefore, .Net makes application deployment much easier and this can simply be done by copying the files into a particular directory.

When it comes to individual users who are carrying out online businesses, .Net gives them a fantastic mobile computing experience. It helps to call and integrate data and information from a wide range of computing hardware like laptops, smart phones and other devices. This helps the users to carry out online business irrespective of their location.

Besides, .Net applications can easily be installed with the use of XCOPY. Users can install the desktop applications with much ease and seamless manner by simply copying the files on respective computers from even a remote server or from any disk. Further, .Net applications are not all dependent on the Registry. That makes it easier to replicate or remove them. In order to delete the files, the user would just need to override them.

.Net code generally remains in a half compiled form or format. However, when it runs, the compiler translates all these half-complied codes into native codes though that does not take any extra time at all. In order to bring down the startup time, the 4.5 version comes up with profile optimization, which has a list or array of methods that the application engages during the startup, speeding it up by many folds.

In the nutshell, the objective of .Net is to make development of desktop and various web based applications much easier and thus it plays a central role in development of net based businesses.

Thus, when it comes to speeding up the online communication, .Net technology plays an extremely pivotal role and more and more organizations are installing this particular application to ensure seamless communication network facility, which takes the center stage so far as online business is concerned. You can get in touch with a custom .net development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

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How ASP.NET SignalR reduces Client's Waiting Period?

As a server-side software system, SignalR is used widely by ASP.NET developers to add real-time web functionality to their applications. The term real-time web functionality refers to the ability to push content from the server to connected clients as soon as the data becomes available. The functionality does not require the web server to wait till the client requests new data. Thus, ASP.NET SignalR used effectively to reduce the client’s waiting period.

Often users refresh web pages with the intention of seeing new and updated data. Each time a web page is refreshed or try to retrieve updated data by implementing long polling, the developers can use Signal R to reduce the waiting time. SignalR further makes it easier for programmers to build applications that need high frequency updates from the server, including collaborative applications, dashboards, real-time forms and real-time games.

Features that Make ASP.NET SignalR Effective in Reducing Client's Waiting Period

Selects the Best Available Transport Automatically

ASP.NET SignalR reduces the client’s waiting time by taking advantage of multiple transportations. It evaluates the best available transport of both server and client, and chooses the best one. At the same time, it also avails the benefits of WebSockets to enable bidirectional communication between the browser and server. However, SignalR relies on the HTML5 API only when it is available. If WebSockets is not available, it uses techniques to facilitate bidirectional communication. The programmers are not required to write specific or additional code to choose the best transportation.

Provides a High-Level API to Create Server-to-Client RPCs

The users can further create server-to-client remote procedure calls (RPC) by using the high-level API provided by SignalR. It uses ASP.NET code from server-side, and calls JavaScript functions in the web browser or any other platform of the client. At the same time, SignalR also allows programmers to smoothly manage connections by adding a variety of hooks, including grouping connections, authorization, and connect or disconnect events.

Facilitates Long and Consistent Polling

Normally, polling consists of making periodic connections from the client to server with the intention of checking if any relevant update to the server content. Some applications like chat programs frequently poll the server to deliver updated data to users. Some application requiring high frequency data often open a connection and keep it open. SignalR uses WebSockets to facilitate long and consistent polling. So the programmers are not required to write complex code to keep the connection open.

Pushes Data Effectively to a Variety of Clients

Often developers have to explore ways to reduce the overhead on server. Some programmers even add capabilities to the server to reduce the overhead by notifying the clients about any updates. They also use a variety of technologies to reduce the server overhead including WebSockets, long polling and Server Sent Events (SSE). But these techniques are not supported by all clients and web browsers. On the other hand, SignalR is designed as an ASP.NET library that uses the existing and available transport technologies. So it is effective in pushing data to a variety of clients including web pages, web applications and Window Phone Apps.

Helps in Building Asynchronous Applications

SignalR is used widely by programmers as a framework to create asynchronous applications. The framework makes it easier for them to build ASP.NET applications by overcoming the limitations of the response and request cycle of internet communication. They can further move to conventional one-on-one connection offered by the conventional client server architectures to push the content quickly from the web server to the client.

Despite being effective in reducing client’s waiting period, ASP.NET SignalR is simple and easy to implement. That is why; many developers rely on the efficient library to rapidly build applications that poll the server constantly to provide updated information to users. You can get in touch with a custom .net development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

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What would businesses benefit by migrating to higher versions in ASP.Net?

.NET Migration is the mechanism of porting various applications that are developed in ASP/VB to .NET framework. More and more businesses are migrating to higher version of ASP.Net in recent years, more so after the introduction of newer, feature-rich .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0 as well as 3.5 versions. Now the question is whether it is worthwhile to migrate to these higher versions of ASP.Net or continuing with the earlier versions is much more fruitful from the technical as well as financial point of view.

Though the .NET framework is designed to provide a wide range of flexible environment for migration as well as porting from ASP and VB to their more advanced versions, it encompasses a considerable extent of technological issues when it comes to successful and effective implementation. In fact, migration to the higher version opens up an entire new world of possibilities for various web-based applications.

Let us discuss some of the benefits that the businesses are likely to enjoy once they migrate to the higher ASP.Net versions.

Even though the primary objective is to maintain the ASP.Net sites that already exist, a business should basically be concerned about the fact that no further service packs for Visual Studio 2003 and .NET Framework 1.1 are available on and after 14^th October, 2008, though extended support was available till 8^th October 2013. It is this that has prompted the businesses to migrate to the higher versions. More so, they have been encouraged by the fact that an increasing number of third party vendors have stopped offering supporting components that would have helped running of the lower version like .NET Framework 1.1 or Visual Studio 2003 IDE. In fact, these two apps have ceased to exist and have been pushed to oblivion.

Again, once should not ignore the tremendous technological enhancements that the .NET framework has undergone over the last few years and this is reason enough as well for the companies to migrate.

The latest cutting-edge technology that the Visual Studio 2010 IDE has come up with is a fantastic platform that provides businesses to use various languages as well as powerful third party plugins, each of which would provide a new degree of programming productivity to the businesses.

Migrating to the higher versions will provide businesses the following benefits.

• It will help businesses to fully integrate the .NET developers into the already-existing team of developers

• It will also enable the businesses to enjoy professional services from a pool of experienced .NET consultants.

• It will enable businesses to out-source as well as offshore services – an option that has always been a plus point of .NET application development.

After migrating the businesses can take the privilege of a wide range of technological superiority. Let us discuss them in short.

Superior Security and Performance

Businesses that have migrated have enjoyed much better security as well as performance

Easier and much superior Integration with external applications as well as tools

Advanced User Interface Elements

High Quality Coding

Migration to higher versions of results in much higher quality, pure C# coding, which can be designed to play the role of the best and the most wide accepted launching point for all the future business centric needs and requirements of the application.

In short, migration to higher version involves the following benefits:

• New Functionality - XML Web Services, Web based forms

• Fully incorporated Support for Debugging– Tracing

• Cleaner Coding Model that is based on the Code Behind concept

• Improved Performance as well as Scalability – compiled language support, improved caching

• Simpler Configuration along with Faster Development

• More Intelligent Web Controls

However, to ensure a successful and effective migration, certain processes need to be followed. Several process groups that the process of migration can be divided into the following phases:

1. Evaluation Process
2. Automatic Conversion
3. Manual Changes
4. Functional Equivalence
5. Customized Evolution

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How can You Leverage the Power of ASP.Net MVC Platform?

As a lightweight and highly testable web application development framework, ASP.Net MVC is used by developers across the world to create robust applications by implementing the model–view–controller (MVC) pattern. The open source framework further allows developers to avail existing ASP.NET features. It uses interface-based contracts to combine models, views, and controllers seamlessly.

Thus, it becomes easier for software QA professionals to test each component independently. The recently released ASP.NET MVC 5.1 also comes with a set of enhanced features to complement the current trends in web application development. Also, you can avail certain features to leverage the power of the latest version of ASP.Net MVC platform.

5 Techniques to Leverage the Power of ASP.Net MVC Platform

1) ASP.Net MVC Scaffolding

Like other MVC frameworks, ASP.Net MVC also allows you to use scaffolding technology to generate code for you database quickly. In addition to generating code for basic database operations like create, read, update and delete (CRUD), you can further use scaffolding to customize and modify the auto-generated code. Scaffolding allows you to create functional data-driven websites rapidly by using several Scaffold templates like page templates, filter templates, field page templates and entity page templates. You can use these templates to generate code basic CRUD operations within the ASP.NET MVC framework.

2) AJAX Helpers

ASP.Net MVC further allows developers to create AJAX enabled elements through AJAX Helpers. You can use the extension methods of AJAXHelper class to create AJAX enabled forms and links. The framework also supports unobtrusive AJAX. So you can use the helper method to define custom AJAX features through different configuration options. At the same time, the properties defined by AjaxOptions class can be used to specify callbacks for various stages of AJAX request life cycle.

3) HTML Helpers

HTML Helper can be defined as a method that returns HTML string. You can use the TML string to represent a variety of content according to your specific needs. For example, the method can also be used to render <img>, <input>, <button> and other standard HTML tags. You also have option to use several types of HTML helpers including inline, built-in, and template HTML helpers. Also, you can render more complex content by creating customized HTML Helpers. For instance, you can create custom HTML Helper to display the data retrieved from database in a tabular format, or render a menu strip.

4) TempData

While using ASP.Net MVC, you have option to pass data from the current request to subsequent request through TempData. The option will make it easier for you to pass data while redirecting from one page to another. However, the lifespan of the option is short, and it will expire once target view is loaded fully. So you have to call the Keep() method to persist data in TempData. The Keep method, however, needs to be called within the current action to keep the value in TempData even after the request is completed.

5) ASP.Net MVC Filters

Often developers have to put extra effort to inject a logic or piece of code before or after executing an action. ASP.NeT MVC makes the process simpler for programmers by allowing them to use custom attributes. The ASP.Net MVC attribute or custom attribute contains the logic or code by implementing filter interface. While developing web application with ASP.Net MVC, you have option to use filters for custom authorization, custom authentication, error handling, data compression and data caching. Based on the requirements of the application, you have option to choose from several types of filters including authentication, authorization, action, result, and exception filters.

It is always important for a developer to decide if ASP.Net MVC is the best option to develop a specific internet application. So you must compare the features of ASP.NET MVC 5.1 according to specific needs of the web application development project to leverage its power more effectively. You can get in touch with a custom .net development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

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