>>>>>I'm going to try the MS 70-515 exam to update my cert for our Certified Partner membership.
>>>>>
>>>>>Apparently a lot of the exam deals with MVC and jQuery - neither of which I have dealt with up till now.
>>>>>
>>>>>Watching MVC videos on LearnDevNow what I come away with is that now MS style web development will take another step down by making developers hand code straight HTML rather than using asp.net controls for complex web pages.
>>>>>
>>>>>On top of that they are using JQuery, which is apparently open source (meaning nobody is responsible for quality - like AJAX), for designing events/methods rather than VB/C# based page events. Great.
>>>>>
>>>>>Sounds great if you are billing the client by the hour and you can convince them that it really should take longer to develop a web app now than a couple of years ago.
>>>>>
>>>>>Did I miss something (if so - please show me the base code for a gridview MVC style where all I do is define the columns and the datasource)?
>>>>>
>>>>>I'm going to have to fight through enough of this to pass the exam one way or another, but I just see it as a further annoyance seeing MS make more ways to make development more difficult.
>>>>
>>>>I actually disagree strongly with you. In our shop, we prefer to hand write the HTML since we have very strong designers on staff. I use several open source products such and jQuery, NHibernate, and log4net - if they are not quality products then people won't use them and the project simply dies. I can see how a group of developers would be more dedicated to a pet project than a paid project. It's their passion.
>>>
>>>If you like to do html by hand then more power to you. There are people who like programming in C++ and Assembler as well. It takes time and costs the client money (hence my title).
>>>
>>>I've learned to write HTML to layout server controls and handle page functionality as needed. Then I add server controls or User controls (loaded with server controls) and let them do the grand majority of rendering. I use javascript to handle client side duties is absolutely necessary. It's kind of like going from VFP to asp.net - suddenly its much more work to lay out a page.
>>>
>>>AJAX is open source that sounds great until you push it. Example - Pageframes look great and then fail to render if they are complex, Been an issue for years on CodePlex and never resolved.
>>>
>>>I've had issues with javascript on ASP.NET sites before - I can contact Microsoft and they will attempt (strongly) to help with this.
>>>>
>>>
>>>>Also, MVC offers very lightweight websites (NO VIEWSTATE!!!!), and is very easy to unit test. ASP.NET WebForms is exactly the opposite. Most people that have tried to do TDD with ASP.NET have either moved to the MVP pattern (and then probably on to MVC) or have moved right to MVC.
>>>
>>>This was pointed out in the video and sounds good. No problem with this.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>MVC also follows more of a traditional web paradigm than ASP.NET WebForms.
>>>
>>>Probably so. That doesn't excite me one way or another.
>>>
>>>I was hoping someone would jump in and tell me that it is faster/easier to build sites in MVC and tell me how to do it. I'd be happy to see that I was wrong on that (because I have to learn this one way or another).
>>
>>I guess I find I don't write all that much HTML. Most of our styling is done through heavy CSS by our designers before it even hits me, and the pages mostly laid out, so all I have to do is make them dynamic. I suspect your sites are heavier on the programming and logic where mine are more of even split.
>>
>>Agreed that it's not for everybody, but I have been getting really sick of the inflexibility of ASP.NET WebForms.
>
>I've managed to get webforms to do pretty much what I need. It certainly wasn't easy but I'm pretty confident building sites with complex logic and pages in webforms now (while still mostly (mostly) ignoring html and javascript).
>
>I see that Telerik has a few controls specifically for MVC. Fairly expensive for the short list of controls but maybe worth it.
>
>Infragistics says some of their controls can play nicely with MVC since the majority of functionality is in javascript on the client side. I have a license for their controls - maybe that is worthwhile.

I was under the impression that the Telerik MVC suite was free. I have their AJAX suite for WebForms and I can't say enough good things about it.