Design Patterns for ASP.NET Developers, Part 1: Basic Patterns

or the past year or so, I've been involved in documenting frameworks that help developers write better code, and create applications that are more efficient and easier to test, debug, maintain, and extend. During that time, it has been interesting to see the continuing development of best-practice techniques and tools at one of the leading software companies in our industry. Most of the work was outside my usual sphere of ASP.NET and web development, concentrating mainly on Windows Forms applications built using .NET 2.0. This is an area where standard design patterns that have evolved over many years are increasingly being refined and put into practice.

However, I regularly found myself wondering just how many of these patterns are equally applicable and advantageous within ASP.NET applications, where we now have the ability to write "real code" in .NET languages such as Visual Basic .NET and C#—rather than the awkward mix of script and COM components upon which classic ASP depended. Surely, out of the 250+ patterns listed on sites such as the PatternShare Community, some must be useful in ASP.NET applications. Yet a search of the web revealed that—while there is plenty of material out there on design patterns in general, and their use in executable and Windows Forms applications—there is little that concentrates directly on the use of standard design patterns within ASP.NET.