Strategy considerations when migrating ASP.NET forms to MVC

Introduction

This article is a short 'fly-past' of the considerations when migrating an ASP.NET forms website to an ASP.NET MVC website. This article is intended to be a simple case study.

Background

There are some great articles (see references) stating the differences between ASP.NET Forms and MVC.

I have a 'small business scheduling and payments tracking' (or scheduling) website created using Visual Studio 2005 'forms' C#. SQL Server stored procedures are used for most CRUD operations. An ADO.NET approach is used for payments tracking.

There is too much to much to mention and so I have done my best to summarise the key concepts, with a few code illustrations for emphasis.

The website that you are migrating could be of a totally different nature. The concepts in this article should still apply, although we can anticipate the detail to be perhaps a little less relevant. For example, video/music or retail websites are not likely to use date based methods as much as my scheduling site.

To give you a brief understanding of the context we should include a brief raison d'être for the scheduling website. Small companies often comprise experts who provide services to clients. Such experts could be physiotherapists, plumbers, mobile hairdressers. It is likely that there is a secretary taking bookings for a number of experts. So the core processes are: 'Take the booking', 'Attend the appointment', 'Receive payment', 'Chase payment'. How many times does a plumber turn up to a job not knowing what to expect? How unprofessional is it for the client to explain to the receptionist and plumber what needs to be done? It's these kinds of questions that this website is aimed at solving. Other benefits include squeezing out as much efficiency as possible from our experts, and making certain past-due invoices are paid in full. Small companies often cannot afford expensive IT systems. A website approach enters the SaaS delivery model and allows IT to be scaled/paid for as the company grows. The inter-operability nature of MVC (and Azure) maximises the likelihood of using mobile devices throughout the business cycle.

ASP.NET Forms to ASP.NET MVC case study

Structure

A couple of diagrams illustrate the differences between ASP.NET forms and ASP.NET MVC and the migration strategy used for the scheduler website. A specific example with code snippets is then used to illustrate the considerations.

ASP.NET forms/MVC differences and migration strategy

The ASP.NET forms approach shown above does not use anything particularly trend setting. It follows a server based application structure. The C# code page load in WeekView.aspx.cs fetches data using stored procedures and assigns values to webcontrols.

The immediate things to notice are:

1. the (pink) view area represents a steep learning curve to understand and then implement the required changes. This is where the main differences are and straight away sets out the first part of our migration strategy. We must understand what parts of WeekView.aspx.cs must be stripped out and implemented in WeekView.cshtml.
2. the ASP.NET MVC Controller has no 'knowledge' of the View controls. You must design the way you choose to fetch and bind data to the View controls. The chosen approach for the scheduler website was to use the JavaScript '$(document).ready which is very similar to .aspx.cs ' Page_Load' because both functions start on page load. The JavaScript 'S(document). ready function fetches data using Ajax/JSON and a call to Controller/Action to unchanged Data Adapters, Stored Procedures and Database Tables.
3. The unchanged word above hints at the chosen migration strategy of decoupling the web controls from .aspx /.aspx.cs and into the .cshtml View. What we lose is the much loved drag/drop Visual Studio designer and double click on a control to create the code behind asp.control method stub.
4. CSS3, HTML 5, Razor, JavaScript, JSON, AJAX (not to mention NuGet) should be considered as separate languages. So, instead of having asp.contols syntax, event handlers and C# code behind, we now have a very steep learning curve to overcome. At least to begin with, it is very difficult to visualise a design when there are so many layers of different 'languages' to consider.
5. If you accept points 3 and 4 above then it must also make sense, while exclusively focussing on getting the View working, to ignore any improvements to the Control-to-Model side of things. Looking back at the MVC structure summary figure above, we should note that Enterprise Framework (EF) and LINQ/ORM are crossed out. It is good practice to note and 'car park' any suggestions and then to move on. The scheduler website's design assumes a sparse matrix, which means that the database could have only a few bookings for 250-something, 15 minute appointment slots. The available stored procedures handle the CRUD operations and some simple scheduling rules. The point is that some serious design, concept testing, and programming needs to happen before EF or LINQ/ORM can be implemented.
6. Some of the business logic will need to move to the view, whereas other parts will stay unchanged. For example, code that searches for a particular Company's Experts should remain in the Controller-Action/Data Adapter/Stored Procedure space. Code that receives the data from the Controller-Action and then updates a <select> drop-down list should be moved to the View's Javascript. In fact we will look at the implementation of this as per the specific example section below.

A specific example

To begin with, let's mention some areas of pain. Implementing the right and up-to-date javascript libraries is a pain. NuGet definitely helps because it will maintain dependencies between libraries. You will still have to get the libraries referenced/called correctly. It is likely that you will use a 3rd party JavaScript library. 'jqueri-ui' is a very popular library because it adds to the very basic controls shipped with Visual Studio/Razor. The scheduler website implements the datepicker ajax jquery-ui control.

Another area of pain is getting the JavaScript/Ajax/JSON/Controller-Action link going. Simple things like missing off [HttpPost] before the Action could mean that an unhelpful '500' pop-up is shown. The biggest help is the keyword debugger; and then step through the code. I have learned to copy Action stubs from existing ones rather than create new ones.

Now to our specific example. Here is the code from WeekView.aspx.cs that (on page load) deletes any existing options, gets the Company's Experts data and updates the dropdown list for a Company's Experts:

The point is that the ExpertDropDownList asp control may be easily updated by the code behind.

Now take a deep breadth because once you become used to the View/JavaScript/Controller approach it becomes reasonably familiar:

In truth, the above View code is part of a larger piece and so the closing tags might not be absolutely correct; although it is thought to be correct. A gold star for anyone spotting any improvements. In addition, comments about where to find great resources that describe CSS3, HTML 5, Razor, JavaScript, JSON, AJAX are welcome too.

Summary

After learning MVC (and Azure programming) until my brain felt it was boiling, I decided to apply MVC principles to an existing scheduling website.

As payback to the many forum threads and articles I have used, here is my attempt at sharing my learning experience.

There is a steep learning curve switching from ASP.NET forms to MVC. Razor has its own syntax. JavaScript, JSON, AJAX are also mini-subject domains in their own right. Then there are the architectural and design changes to consider. I remember one of the Microsoft ASP.NET gurus saying that the best code in the world is code that is already written and can be reused. The approach taken here follows this thought and keeps within Agile definitions of 'quality'.

I hope this article contributes to our shared knowledge base. I would have personally appreciated this article at the start of my journey. I have searched and not yet found the same article anywhere. Now I have said that I'm certain someone will show me where I should have looked.

Suggested Articles

• http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/38778/ASP-NET-WebForms-and-ASP-NET-MVC-in-Harmony
• http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/552846/Why-s-How-s-of-Asp-Net-MVC-Part

Document History

Version1 5th April 2014. Corrected 2 typos.

Version 0 4th April 2014. First draft.