One of the top good practices for ASP.NET MVC is not to use the ViewData Dictionary, but to put your data in a strongly typed ViewModel instead. Many people seem to be using Linq to SQL entities as a ViewModel, because it’s a very comfortable approach. But what do you do if your view should contain data that is not included in any of your linq entities? Scott Gu’s chapter 1 preview of his upcoming ASP.NET MVC book recommends using a custom-shaped ViewModel for those cases. (more…)

I’ve decided take Microsoft’s brand new ASP.NET MVC framework for a small test drive by building a small proof of concept application with it. The frame work sure looks promising, even despite it’s early stage of development and relatively small features as compared to ASP.NET web forms.

It seems there are no good books available on the subject yet. The few that are already in stock at Amazon are based on the community preview, and it seems that there have been quite a few changes in the the framework since then.

Fortunately, ScottGu hat just released a free sample chapter of his upcoming “Professional ASP.NET” (Wrox) book. It contains a 200-page walkthrough guide on how to build a simple ASP.NET MVC application.

The chapter is available for download here.