TODO: When Creating a New ASP.NET MVC Project

Michael Kennedy put this great little blog post together outlining 9 things we can do when starting a new ASP.NET MVC 3 project. It’s a good starting point since the MVC 3 web application template is already out of date with many things. Here is a quick run down of the things I do and don’t in comparison to his list:

  1. Remove the MicrosoftMvc*.js AJAX and validation scripts.
  2. Update NuGet packages… I do things a little differently here. I completely remove the EntityFramework package (I may add it or another ORM back in later, but that ends up usually in a persistence specific project and it is usually a micro ORM). I also remove jQuery Visual Studio 2010 Intellisense package since the contents are bundled with the updated the other jQuery packages anyway. I remove the jQuery UI package (and add it back when I need it). Update the remaining jQuery and Modernizr packages.
  3. Create my own JavaScripts directory to avoid overwrites when updating or installing other JavaScript based packages.
  4. Love this tip! Who doesn’t like intellisense?
  5. Already did this in step 2.
  6. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to CSS. But this tip sounds like a good idea. Wonder if there is a NuGet package for Eric Meyer’s reset.css file?
  7. I skip this step. In my opinion, the only models in my MVC project are view models anyway. So I leave the Models folder in my MVC project alone. If my project requires business models, they get placed in a business logic project. If I have persistence models, they get placed in my persistence project.
  8. Another area where I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. But I do like fast loading pages, so I am going to try this tip out and put all the JavaScript files that I can at the bottom. Just remember that some do need to go at the top.
  9. And yet another tip that I haven’t tried, but plan.

As a recap, tips 1, 3, and 4 make perfect sense. Tip 2 also makes sense, but I tweak it to fit my needs and I suggest you do to. I glaze over tip 5 and skip tip 7 because it was either previously addressed or doesn’t fit my needs. Tips 6, 8, and 9 sound like good ideas and I need to try them out.

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