I’ve thought about starting a blog for quite some time now, so this is it – I’m finally doing it.  I made the decision to actually do this a couple weeks ago, even setup my account here on WordPress.  The only thing stopping me was this – where to begin?  What should my first post be?  Since I’ve been interested in ASP.NET MVC for some time and now have a need to write a production app with the technology, it seemed right.

So where to get started with ASP.NET MVC?  I’ve read through most of the tutorials from the ASP.NET MVC website.  I’ve read many blog posts over the last year from Scott Hanselman, David Hayden, Jeffrey Palermo and others.  Now it’s time to step up to the plate and actually make things happen.

The first thing I’m doing is buying the Pro ASP.NET MVC book by Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, Rob Conery and Phil Haak.  I’ve read many reviews that say this is a pretty good book to have on hand and I’m sure it will come in handy.

Now the fun begins.  My first task is to setup the project solution.  I’m very meticulous about how a solution gets setup, as once it’s done it’s usually set in stone becuase it can be a pain to change later.  I’ve played with Billy McCafferty’s S#arp Architecture, which is a framework for starting an ASP.NET MVC project in a Domain Driven Design fashion.  I like the way things are broken up and will probably mock much of his structure.  It’s got great samples for how/where to register your routes and configure your IoC container, for which I’ll be using Windsor.

We’re using LLBLGen for an ORM, with LINQ support, so we’ll likely be handing those generating objects around the app, so I’ll have to account for that with the design.

The team that’s working on this project has no experience with ASP.NET MVC, and mine is very limited, so it will be a learning experience for all.  I’m really stoked to get going on this one and will keep you posted on our architectural decisions and how things turn out.