Yet another Microsoft MVC/MonoRail blog post

I am not going to quote any other blogs posts that I have read in the past two weeks about these topics, If you do a System.Web.MVC search or were at ALT.Net then I’m sure you’ve already read enough about it.

This is definately some cool stuff. I almost came to tears when I saw Jason post that everything is interface based. It’s also a good feeling to finally see that Microsoft is listening to the community and is making steps to make a difference and not get left behind.

That being said, I find only one problem at the moment with MS MVC…It’s not open source. This opens up a myriad of problems and road blocks that are not in the way when working with MonoRail or other open source projects.

I did a post a long time ago about why I loved MonoRail so much. Basically, a thread was started on the mailing list where I believe Colin Ramsay asked a question about Controller tests or something. After only 24 hours there was new code on the trunk, everyone was pleased and we were set to go. Try that out on the new MVC architecture. Good luck.

The problem is, once you reach a certain skill level and profecient enough, you can pull down development trunks, modify code to suit your needs and recompile. You can contribute to open source projects to help the community. This is not so with Microsoft tools because they are not open source. This is a big problem if you ask me. Especially how fast the skilled community is moving now. Microsoft needs to create some common ground so they don’t get left behind yet again when no changes are applied to MS MVC for 6 months or more. (I really hope this is not the case. If anyone knows otherwise please prove me wrong!)

Now, I know I read somewhere (and I can’t find the post now), that this will be placed on codeplex for all to download. Here are some immediate questions that I would like to pose to MS:

• Does this also mean that people can browse the source and submit patches?
• Once bugs are found or additions need to be made how long will the turn around be?
• Will Microsoft actually listen to the community as where System.Web.MVC needs to head development wise if the community cannot submit patches?

Maybe I am just looking for the negative but I really feel these are points that will determine if I personally use this Microsoft tool. I love MonoRail and will continue to use it by default for all projects, but in projects where the client doesn’t want to use open source tools, then I will of course opt for this.

I should not even be posting about this topic at all. I put it off for two weeks to try to avoid it but I feel like I need to chime in as well. I have banged my head against the wall for so long when using Microsoft tools that I avoid their tools at any cost. I am hoping that this is finally the exception because I am willing to give them another chance. Microsoft tools is a gripe for me. I struggled with them for so long that I don’t even bother anymore.

I am willing to give this tool a shot though. This could be worth the effort. We will have to wait and see!