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Asked: 2026-05-16T14:58:54+00:00

I’m pretty new to programming in general (really started only 2 1/2 years ago)

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I’m pretty new to programming in general (really started only 2 1/2 years ago) and I’m trying to decide what the best way is to approach a web app I’m making at work.
A senior developer at work is encouraging me to get into MVC and after a good 24 hours of pouring over blogs, source code and other material on the subject I’m beginning to understand why I’d want to use it.

At the same time though, our company’s existing apps are written as WebForms so I don’t want to do something as drastic as using the actual ASP.NET MVC framework to make my app(would it really be THAT drastic though?).

What I’d really like to know is whether or not it would be practical or even possible to do WebForms but still follow the MVC philosophy of separation of concerns. Will I really just be adding an unnecessary layer to an already complicated .aspx + codebehind page?

Everyone in the blogosphere seems to think that they MUST use some kind of framework if they want to do MVC. What in WebForms is stopping them from just doing it themselves?

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  1. Editorial Team

    If a senior in your team is encouraging you to look into MVC for your app and you think it’s a good move then go for it (if this app is stand-alone especially).

    You can also look into the MVVM pattern. This is what many have done with WebForms and it is very similar to the MVC pattern. By applying the MVVM pattern to WebForms you would be showing how one can still use WebForms but get much of the goodness that is in the MVC pattern with ASP.Net MVC. It would be a nice way to show other devs in the team what can be done to make WebForms more SOC and testable without abandoning WebForms outright.

    Here’s a few more links on MVVM:

    http://weblogs.asp.net/craigshoemaker/archive/2009/11/03/vm-workshop-model-view-viewmodel-mvvm-and-the-presentation-model-pattern-in-5-ui-platforms.aspx

    http://russelleast.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/overview-of-the-modelview-viewmodel-mvvm-pattern-and-data-binding/

    MVVM is also very popular in Silverlight apps….

    There is also the MVP pattern as well. Here’s an open source implementation for WebForms. This particular implementation is used by DotNetNuke 5.3.

    A bit more explanation from MS on MVP and .Net

    Either one of these is a great choice if you want to gain more control of your code but still have the WebForms features you enjoy and/or want to continue to have for any reason such as what it sounds like in your case of a lot of legacy code using it.

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