Introduction
MVC4 is really trying to break new ground in helping developers get to market more quickly and with a product that adheres to the emerging standards of today. A tough thing to ask of any technology, to be sure, but it's making some decent strides in the right direction.
Already the tutorials and blogs posts are popping up quicker than mushrooms on the midden heap. We highlight a few here that you definitely shouldn't miss which deal with key upcoming features...
ASP.NET MVC 4 Hosting
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ASP.NET MVC 4 Overview - Part 2
Jon Galloway goes into some significant detail here about some of the changes coming our way in the new version. He talks about the new default templates that come out of the box and the reasoning behind them.
He also talks about the new adaptive rendering taking advantage of CSS media queries and the usage of the viewport meta tag to help improve the mobile user experience. Overall a solid post that will stand the test of time. Check it out...
ASP.NET MVC 4 Bundling and Minification
Bundling and Minification of assets have to be two of the most tedious things to setup on a new web project. In this excellent post, David Hayden goes through exactly what you need to do to make the process as seamless as possible in MVC4.
Don't make the mistake of leaving this to the end of the project. You'll have deployment nightmares you didn't dream of and you'll be kicking yourself for not smoothing out the wrinkles. Do it early, and you'll thank yourself everyday for that small mercy...
Micro ORM Data Mapping with PetaPoco and ASP.NET MVC 4
Getting tired of working with the verbosity of Entity Framework classes and mapping? Well, you're not the only one, and in this quality post, Greg Arroyo takes us for a lap around the track using PetaPoco as your Micro ORM in MVC4.
Micro ORMs really are here to stay, and in some ways, more broadly applicable to web applications of today where everyone is trying to keep things more simple. If you haven't tried one yet, take this opportunity to get clued up on these fantastic tools.
ASP.NET MVC 4 Web API Routes and ApiController
Once again David Hayden masterfully takes us through a key piece of architecture that is going to be very important to anyone who will be working with MVC4. He details what seems to be a very slick piece of integration work between the new Web API framework and MVC4, and he throws in some OData queries for good measure.
It's short and sweet, and just enough to get you going, and whet your appetite for how to architect your solutions around your own APIs, allowing for more decoupled designs with less possible points of failure.
Getting started on your first Single Page Application
As with the introduction of any new method now encompassed in a technology, it's best to start with what comes straight from the horse's mouth. This Walkthrough put together by Brad Severtson gives you a great introduction, and leaves the mind boggling as to the possibilities.
If you've ever wanted to build your own Gmail and specifically wanted to do it with MVC, then go ahead, knock yourself out! (no pun intended)..