Developer roadmap - 1. Moving to MVC. Your thoughts.

I think the issue is not so much a technical decision, but more a matter of priorities. If the development team spends lots of time on an MVC conversion, than they are not adding features and fixes. It looks to me that the advantages are not that strong from a business perspective, unless the unit testing savings make up a significant portion of the ongoing development time.

One of the great features of nopCommerce is that the code/forms are very clear and easy to understand. I'd hate to see a steeper learning curve, which would discourage people from switching to nopCommerce. Usability is important from a developer perspective, not just an end-user perspective. I love using new technology as much as anyone, but I haven't seen a clear business case for a major change like this.

Me, personally wouldn't mind if nopCommerce stop adding new feature and start focusing on migrating to MVC. Even if the MVC version will not have all features in current version.
As we know it, ASP.NET MVC, like nopCommerce, is also open-source. I think that alone should make the nopCommerce team more excited to develop this project than ever before.

Bottom line: Both Web Forms and MVC have their pros and cons, excelent web applications can be done with either one, the only real difference is if you are trying to build a RESTful Web 2.0 Ajax web application, in that case MVC is the way to go.

I've been working on a new RESTful JQuery MVC application project and the lever of interactivity and optimization that can be achieved is amazing, there's no way to reasonably develop such apps in Web Forms, so the only reason to steer the project to MVC is if that type of GUI features are deemed as top priority, otherwise the choice is Web Forms, since the technology is going to keep being evolved by Microsoft and will be with us for years to come.

I think it's more about what you want to do, you would probably find MVC fun and I think that's why you are looking at it. Which is not a bad thing, it is your enthusiasm that keeps the project running. So for an open source project, do whatever motivates you.

If you look on it as a business, then don't do it as you'll be spending months migrating the solution over to MVC and will generate many bugs in the process which will prevent you from moving forward with your existing, stable codebase. Time is money, it'll cost you a lot of time.

If you still want to do it, hedge your bets and create both an MVC and webforms version in the solution side by side.

Ryan

Hi,
I think nopCommerce team must focus on nopCommerce itself by developing a new features, fixing bugs, update documentation,.. etc rathar than running behind Microsoft new frameworks which is never stops.

Thanks,
Ahmed nabil

Results of our recent survey are complete:

10. Do you want us to move nopCommerce from ASP.NET Web Forms to ASP.NET MVC?
Yes - 158 (49.5%)
No  - 161 (50.5%)

nopCommerce team | a.m. wrote:

So what is your final decision?

Why not both?  I know at first glance this seems like an impossible amount of work but follow me on this.

Many of the "NOs" cited the difficulty in keeping up with the changes and upgrades.  If this is truly the case then perhaps 1.9 or 2.0 can be the final release for some time.  There are more than enough features to shift the focus away from development and more into marketing and third-party integration.

During this time a MVC version could be started and the community, I am sure, would still provide valuable feedback.  Then let the market decide.

One word of caution though, rethink some of the logic when starting on the MVC version.  I don't want to start a laundry list right now but there are a few things I think should be changed, structurally, as I am sure everyone else has there own pet peeve.

Finally, one thing I can guarantee is that the uncertainty presently surrounding this project is of far greater consequence than switching or not switching.

joebloe wrote:

the logistics of this just won't be possible, and why would you want to? Such a waste of time. nopCommerce is a small team, and whatever decision is made should not be taken lightly.

At the end of the day we can achieve the same outcome using MVC or Web Forms, however there are more plus points to MVC than there are Web Forms (as far as I can see, I am only just finishing my first site in MVC now)

Why not both?

I agree a smarter way to go and based on the vote probably the best option to please everyone.