Scott Guthrie Throws Some Water on the Web Forms/MVC Debate

Scott Guthrie wrote a very good article on about how to have a reasoned technical debate in response to the recent Web Forms / MVC flamewars that have been happening across the internet. Although I fall into the MVC camp it was good to see the Microsoft VP of the Developer Division try to calm people down. I believe Scott was trying to explain that both technologies are valid approaches to web development and that choosing one over the other for a project is not a reason to engage flamewars.

I have seen a lot of trashing of MVC by Web Forms adherents lately.  Web Forms advocates arguments break down into two categories reasoned opinions and FUD.  Here are some of the reasoned arguments I have seen.

• they are already comfortable with the Web Forms page lifecycle
• they don’t want to lose their investments in server controls that they have purchased or developed

Here are some of the arguments that just seem like FUD to me.

• Web Forms are better for larger projects
• Web Forms are more productive

Developers that have a lot of experience with Web Forms and a large investment in doing development using the Web Forms model and aren’t interested in MVC should stick with Web Forms. These are valid reasons for sticking with mature technology that isn’t going away anytime soon.

The other arguments however fall into the FUD category. Having just deployed a good size site built on ASP.NET MVC it works just fine for large projects. My team was definitely more productive using MVC than we would have been using Web Forms. Developers who are looking for more control over what is output to the page and a more agile development style should learn more about MVC.

When it comes to debating the merits of Web Forms and MVC the MVC camp is just as guilty when it comes to the religious wars that technology debates seem to turn into. Those who have made the switch to MVC really can’t understand why someone would stick with Web Forms and the limitations they impose on the developer. MVC developers see the page lifecycle and server controls as limitation while Web Forms developers see them as benefits. So what is really going on is developers trying to protect their ego’s by denigrating the choices others have made. This is basically a variation of the Emacs versus vi text editor wars.

It was nice to see someone of Scott Guthrie’s status in the community telling everyone to use their heads and try and use reasoned arguments and not go around blowing your stack at people who happen to disagree with you.

Update: Ian Cooper has written up a fantastic MVC or Web Forms comparison following up on Scott Guthrie’s article. Ian Cooper does a really great job summing up the argument for MVC and where Microsoft web development practices are going.