i've never developed an asp.net site, i've been a desktop application developer for my entire career. i've developed a classic asp site, in fact www.jobshy.com still runs on the primative cms system with a mysql backend that i wrote in it YEARS back and even www.frogdreaming.com used the same classic asp application too.

actually thinking about it i did a fair bit of classic asp development cus i wrote all the various web sites of my first employer, but at the time asp.net surfaced, i was really into the desktop development in vb6, writing automation software and device drivers for various bits of kit, and it just totally passed me by. also at that early stage of my professional life i didn't realise how important continuous improvment was, and didn't learn asp.net. as the years and the development went by, and i started learning .net, i was still focused on the desktop apps and didn't touch any web development, and still haven't to this day.

to be honest about it, the few times that i did look into web development it scared the hell out of me. my classic asp background worked in a very stateless way (read, very basic! - but thats how the web works right?!) and all the asp.net gumph to simulate the winforms environment i was used to just seamed like a total kop out, and i just never bothered to get up to speed with it. this quote from rob conery sums up what i think about asp.net webforms development: 

The Great Lie 

WebForms is a lie. It’s abstraction wrapped in deception covered in lie sauce presented on a plate full of diversion and sleight of hand. Nothing you do with Webforms has anything to do with the web – you let it do the work for you.

i was employed at my current place as more of a backend developer, i've done a lot of database and windows services programming over the past two years (am i'm not happy about that) and so when asked to provide a ui for this new project that i'm working on i shuddered at the thought of having to implement it in asp.net webforms. i'm not an asp.net guy, and if i'm made to develop this ui using it...well, i'd hate to be the poor so who would have to support and extend it, because i'm certian i would make some nasty school boy errors.

so what are my options? wpf browser app? silverlight?

nah...mvc!

the first chapter of professional asp.net mvc that scottgu posted up is wicked. i've worked all the way through it and what's great about it is that it covers the generation of an entire app from file > new project.

its got me really excited about doing some web development now, and i'm currently in the middle of knocking up some prototypes of the ui i need to deliver in the next few weeks.

and i really becoming a web guy?