Where I can use asp.net MVC with my SharePoint 2013 project

Question

My current situation is as follow:-

1. I have a team with asp.net MVC experience , entity framework, jQuery +SQL server
2. We have built many web applications using the above technologies.
3. Currently we are going to start a new SharePoint 2013 project, and we do not have previous experience in SharePoint before.

Currently my view point is a follow:-

1. From what I have read so far SharePoint 2013 is built on web forms and there is no place for asp.net MVC inside it. At least for the current version!!.
2. But I was attending an online training as they mentioned that the only way to use asp.net MVC within SharePoint is to build Apps inside SharePoint 2013, but without giving further explanation on how/where to use them.

My questions are:-

1. I am not sure what does building asp.net MVC Apps mean and what I can use these Apps for?
2. Are there online tutorial for implementing such integration between SP & MVC?
3. And will building mvc apps inside SharePoint 2013 give an advantage over building web forms apps?. I mean can we feel the advantages of MVC framework inside SharePoint project such as (separation of concern, extensibility, its full compliance of the http web architecture, using data annotations for validations, etc), or the only advantage I will get si that the time will be less since my team are experience in MVC?

Thanks in advance for your help. BR

Answer 1

Your business requirements should dictate the technologies you use on this or any project. To make the right decisions on this you really need an experienced SharePoint architect. Building a SharePoint project of any complexity without one will almost certainly end in tears.

That said, SharePoint is a huge product, and your team will almost certainly have to learn a bunch of new concepts. And in fact there is an awful lot you can do without any custom code whatsoever.

Answer 2

Hy I also read about this topics and from what i can relate from all of them. MVC brings another layer of abstraction in your sharepoint development.. That means much more parallel work as you already know.

• In one aspect i find using MVC useful, integrate SignalR in Sharepoint, i wanted to integrate SignalR in sharepoint but it`s quite tricky and that means changing your sharepoint webconfig which is not a pretty good idea.
• Another point is that using REST Call and OData with MVC your possibilities are infinite.
• Knockout.js in MVC transforms your architecture in MVVM, so you have Sharepoint MVVM.
• With Webforms you have some abstract implementations over HTML, sometimes you don`t want all of that fuzz.
• A MVC LifeCycle is simpler than a WebForm, easier to debug.
• For some Projects WebForms is as good as MVC but do you really need all those asp controls when you have Kendo UI.?
• With Kendo, KnockOuts.js and SignalR in the game, WebForms looks like dinosaurs.
• With BCD you can access your entity model with search from sharepoint. Hope my point of view will help....

If you make Sharepoint hosted Apps MVC i not such a good idea, but if you use 360 hosted Apps than i think MVC is the way to go. From a technical trend, i think implementing MVC apps in sharepoint will give u the later implementation of other custom modules, as MVC seems to have a huge growth.