4 ms·

Using Razor with ASP.NET MVC in Four Easy Steps

7 points by tghw 16y ago

troygoode 16y ago
While I'm certainly glad that Phil & co are finally replacing the inadequate WebForms view engine with something better, I'm nonplussed that the "something better" still isn't at least as good as Spark - especially since Louis (the creator of Spark) works on the Asp.net team now. I realize that Spark's fake-HTML-element syntax would not be everyone's personal favorite (reminders of: Cold Fusion, WebForm server controls), the fact is that Spark provides a good bit of "value add" on top of the normal view engine goodness. Example (in Spark): <ul> <li each="var p in Model.Products" class="alt?{pIndex%2!=0} isFirst?{pIsFirst} isLast?{pIsLast}"> Product: ${p.Name} </li> </ul> Would output: <ul> <li class="isFirst">Product: AAA</li> <li class="alt">Product: BBB</li> <li>Product: CCC</li> <li class="alt isLast">Product: DDD</li> </ul> The alternation of rows and detection of first/last row is an _extremely_ common scenario for web developers that Spark totally gets right, but so far Razor just ignores. I'm glad there will be an option for the masses that are just using whatever is packed in the box, but so far I'm not seeing what all the fuss is for those of us that long since moved on from the built-in ViewEngine.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Interesting. It reminds me of Zope's Page Templates. I find Spark's syntax to be dirtier, however. Has anyone implemented ZPT for .NET?
  - troygoode 16y ago
    I don't know of any .NET implementation of ZPT. What makes you find Spark's syntax to be dirtier than ZPT? Is it the fact that the Spark example I gave isn't valid XHTML like ZPT is? If so, that is simply out of convenience - Spark also offers a way to use proper XML namespacing to achieve complete XHTML compliance: http://www.sparkviewengine.com/documentation/syntax http://www.sparkviewengine.com/documentation/syntax (scroll all the way down)
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      Cool. And yes - the shortcuts are something I frown upon. Template languages should not be so expressive as to create an incentive to ASP-style coding, nor too castrated as to prevent you from doing whatever you want. I think ZPT is right in the middle of the sweet spot.
jerhinesmith 16y ago
At the risk of coming across as "my favorite language/platform is better than your favorite language/platform", the fact that you have to jump through these hoops to get Razor working in your ASP.NET MVC app strikes me as anything but easy (and certainly not intuitive). Compare this to using haml in RoR: 1. gem install haml 2. vi newfile.html.haml Why again doesn't .NET have a plugin management system analogous to gems? Or is there one that I just don't know about?
- gokhan 16y ago
  Razor is not a released technology and the article is describing a hack, as extracting Razor dlls from WebMatrix CTP and manually registering them in your project.
  - jerhinesmith 16y ago
    Ah, that makes a lot more sense. I guess that's my own fault for not doing enough research before commenting.
- troygoode 16y ago
  What gokhan said is right. Razor will be built-in to the next rev of ASP.Net MVC (and in fact will be the default view engine). They're also supposed to be releasing a preview of the next rev of MVC soon, which will include Razor support. That said, +MILLION to your comment about gems. No, .NET doesn't really have anything like that. There have been a few projects that have tried to take it on, but nothing has ever hit critical mass.

7 points by tghw 16y ago

While I'm certainly glad that Phil & co are finally replacing the inadequate WebForms view engine with something better, I'm nonplussed that the "something better" still isn't at least as good as Spark - especially since Louis (the creator of Spark) works on the Asp.net team now. I realize that Spark's fake-HTML-element syntax would not be everyone's personal favorite (reminders of: Cold Fusion, WebForm server controls), the fact is that Spark provides a good bit of "value add" on top of the normal view engine goodness. Example (in Spark): <ul> <li each="var p in Model.Products" class="alt?{pIndex%2!=0} isFirst?{pIsFirst} isLast?{pIsLast}"> Product: ${p.Name} </li> </ul> Would output: <ul> <li class="isFirst">Product: AAA</li> <li class="alt">Product: BBB</li> <li>Product: CCC</li> <li class="alt isLast">Product: DDD</li> </ul> The alternation of rows and detection of first/last row is an _extremely_ common scenario for web developers that Spark totally gets right, but so far Razor just ignores. I'm glad there will be an option for the masses that are just using whatever is packed in the box, but so far I'm not seeing what all the fuss is for those of us that long since moved on from the built-in ViewEngine.

rbanffy 16y ago
Interesting. It reminds me of Zope's Page Templates. I find Spark's syntax to be dirtier, however. Has anyone implemented ZPT for .NET?
- troygoode 16y ago
  I don't know of any .NET implementation of ZPT. What makes you find Spark's syntax to be dirtier than ZPT? Is it the fact that the Spark example I gave isn't valid XHTML like ZPT is? If so, that is simply out of convenience - Spark also offers a way to use proper XML namespacing to achieve complete XHTML compliance: http://www.sparkviewengine.com/documentation/syntax http://www.sparkviewengine.com/documentation/syntax (scroll all the way down)
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Cool. And yes - the shortcuts are something I frown upon. Template languages should not be so expressive as to create an incentive to ASP-style coding, nor too castrated as to prevent you from doing whatever you want. I think ZPT is right in the middle of the sweet spot.

jerhinesmith 16y ago

At the risk of coming across as "my favorite language/platform is better than your favorite language/platform", the fact that you have to jump through these hoops to get Razor working in your ASP.NET MVC app strikes me as anything but easy (and certainly not intuitive). Compare this to using haml in RoR: 1. gem install haml 2. vi newfile.html.haml Why again doesn't .NET have a plugin management system analogous to gems? Or is there one that I just don't know about?

gokhan 16y ago
Razor is not a released technology and the article is describing a hack, as extracting Razor dlls from WebMatrix CTP and manually registering them in your project.
- jerhinesmith 16y ago
  Ah, that makes a lot more sense. I guess that's my own fault for not doing enough research before commenting.
troygoode 16y ago
What gokhan said is right. Razor will be built-in to the next rev of ASP.Net MVC (and in fact will be the default view engine). They're also supposed to be releasing a preview of the next rev of MVC soon, which will include Razor support. That said, +MILLION to your comment about gems. No, .NET doesn't really have anything like that. There have been a few projects that have tried to take it on, but nothing has ever hit critical mass.