“But some people don’t want to learn. For them it is important to have a standard tool, so they can complete their 9 to 5 tasks without breaking a sweat. ”

WebForms only let you do your job “without breaking a sweat” if you’re building brand new greenfield code. Once you have an application of any appreciable size, and you want to keep it maintainable, you tend to adopt a solution that is essentially an end run around WebForms. Either that, or it becomes an unmaintainable mess. I’ve seen way too many of those to want to consider continuing that way.

Comments like the one by Glenn up there that got deleted are usually written by people who have gotten so used to hack-patch-hotfix-repeat that they don’t try anything else. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome… you’re beginning to “identify with your kidnappers” and you’ve lost perspective that there might be other ways to do things besides what you’ve always done.

Challenge and debate, but don’t insult. It’s wholly appropriate to question the intelligence of someone who can’t present their arguments intelligently.

If you think Jimmy is wrong, then tell him why and refute him.

I’d agree with you there. But I’d say WebForms is used only because it exists and MS pushed it, not because it’s simple or easy to use. It demos well, though.

I dunno, I see cowardice behind anonymity. I have a Contact link. I’d be happy to have a throwdown discussion through email. Just not through blog comments, it’s a terrible medium for discussion, and anonymous posters can use abrasive styles that detract from an honest debate.

Reading the original post again, nothing I said implied anything about users of WebForms. So I fail to see why your tone is necessary.

The point I was trying to make is the majority of the developers don’t read and learn outside of work. They go to work put in there day and then they are done. You can make your own opinions on whether that is wrong or right. These are the people that will never use the MVC framework and are happy to keep chugging along with WebForms. My point is I don’t see the MVC framework catching on with the same number of users as WebForms.

I’ll leave you to bask in the gentler comments of people who primarily agree with you.

Due to petty insults and name-calling, I’m deleting your comment. Although you have some good points, it’s unfortunate they were overshadowed by the negativity. Hopefully you can elevate yourself and the discussion back into a civilized atmosphere.

I won’t hold my breath.

Technically, it is horrible. I’ve seen my share of horrendous code written in it. People that don’t get web programming hack their way around it until their boss is happy.

In the same time, if you are beginner you have an easy entry point into web programming. This is very important. Even the smartest person will have troubles coping with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and HTTP, if he does not have prior experience. Who wants to tell them about all the browser bugs? Having an abstracted version of the web applications might be beneficial at this point. Any smart person will soon grasp the concepts and will gradually start searching for better and less abstracted alternatives.

But some people don’t want to learn. For them it is important to have a standard tool, so they can complete their 9 to 5 tasks without breaking a sweat. I don’t like this approach, but WebForms has a lot to offer to those people. They can buy off the shelf components and do their work (mostly) easy. The “proper” web application frameworks will hardly appeal to those people.

I’ve got little away from the technical side. I just wanted to add some “real life” context to the discussion.

I guess I am expecting much more from MS in v1.0 when it comes to MVC since they’ve arrived so late in the game that it affords them the opportunity to avoid previously disclosed dangers and draw from (i.e.: copy) those that went before them.

But, yes, I think it may be safe to infer that you also mean, “Give ‘em a break, dude, it’s only been 8 months so far”. And to that I would concur and say that I couldn’t do it any faster. But it doesn’t keep me from expecting more.

To clarify, I am not defending ASP.NET WebForms as a good implementation, when I say it “got some things right”. I am referring to its vision and attempt to be usable abstration layer, especially circa 2001. Granted, as Kyle points out, it is getting a bit dated to still be using basically the same abstraction architecture.

Yes, viewstate is the one thing that still has me scratching my head about WebForms. Before ASP.NET, with or without MVC (Struts), I kept state on the server side and re-populated upon load. I’m not sure why MS ever went the client-side route.