I rarely write negative reviews, but I have to say, this book is not good. I'm a relatively seasoned Web Forms developer, having spent the last eight years or so, off and on, developing apps in ASP.NET, and I was looking to this book to introduce me to ASP.NET MVC. As it stands, I'm 100 pages into the book, and I've yet to be presented with a single practical example; the author's spent all this time (seriously, no exaggeration -- the first 100 pages) trying to explain to me that yes, ASP.NET MVC is different from Web Forms -- not better, just different -- and that it extends the existing ASP.NET runtime in ways I couldn't care less about at this point. Thus far, we haven't created a single project, no File > New, no examples, nothing. I'm extremely frustrated and disappointed at this purchase, which sucks, because I generally give programming books the benefit of the doubt.

I actually can't think of a single brand of developer this book would be good for. If you're a seasoned Web Forms dev, as I am, you're going to find this stuff extremely tedious, as I have. If you're new to ASP.NET, there's so much jargon and page-filling fluff baked into the first hundred pages that you'll almost surely find yourself completely baffled as to what you're supposed to do with all this information relating to the mechanics of the IIS runtime and HttpHandlers and Modules and Contexts when all you want to do is build a flippin' HelloWorld and then dig deeper into how it works later. I don't want to be harsh, because I realize writers have to make a living, but seriously, do yourself a favor, save your money and skip this book. I don't have an alternative to recommend, yet, but I know one thing -- I'll be returning this one first thing in the morning.

First, let me say that generally I love Esposito's books and articles. His book on AJAX in Microsoft was the best on the topic. So, I expected a lot and ended up quite disappointed.

I am technical manager, and my developers have experience with MVC 1. We are all "fan-boys" MVC and for me it is the first time I actually enjoy development in Microsoft technologies.

Now, about the book. Who is this book for? The new MVC developers? It doesn't have any examples that one can build upon and learn the skills. For experienced developers? It doesn't go into the advanced implementation solutions; and the philosophy behind MVC only takes you so far. It goes to great (I would say, excruciating) details into what is the foundation of MVC design - but misses what *is* actually the MVC design. For example, the chapter on the controllers lists the role of controllers, motivation behind them, and anatomy of them. It also lists the interfaces that controllers implement. The bottom line - it convinced me what a great thing a controller is, but gave very little guidance how to use it!

It may be helpful for the instructors that can use some information in the classes. Or, it is very useful if you plan to join Scott Guthrie's team and develop MVC 3. But for real-world developers, architects, or technical managers - the value is questionable.

I am enjoying the book so far and read 4 chapters so far. there are some good examples and discussions about different patterns MVC/MVP/MVVM and when to use which one. It is not a step > webforms->mvc and how IIS and other settings have evolved to make this happen.

I wanted to download the code and followed the link in book which took me to [...] and could not find a place to download code. could anyone help me with this? I will update my review once I have read the whole book.