The benefits of such a migration to a developer are clear, but I’m not naive. The site in question is our flagship e-commerce site built on tried-and-proven classic ASP (VBScript) technology, with huge amounts of legacy code, multiple franchise systems, admin systems, and large numbers of paying customers. If it ain’t broke, there’s no chance we’ll be spending months on a risky rewrite. So I knew I had to be cunning.

My goal was simple. If I could get a small part of the front-end site to run under MVC, and show significant benefit to our client, it might just happen. The bait? Performance. One of the big benefits of moving from a scripting language to a modern framework is the tools available for various levels of caching. The other main drive was to move from using several 3rd party tools (such as Java and ISAPI ReWrite) to a common language and framework (C#.NET). This would make site maintenance less of a headache for everyone.

Over the course of a few lunchtimes, evenings and Saturday mornings I threw together a test site. A few demos and a series comparison stats later and we had a proposal.

Over the course of a series of blog posts, I’ll be outlining the various challenges associated with this project and how we tackle them. This will include advanced and customised routing, caching, best practices and running new code side-by-side with legacy code. Enjoy.

First off, a brief introduction to how we manage our data. Fragments of data that are used to build a web page are stored as XML in separate records in one table and associations are stored in another. That’s the basics. Meta data (such as created dates, published flags etc) are fields in the table, but the page data itself (title, category, body) is stored in a single XML field. To generate a web page, the required XML is collected, nested, transformed, and returned. Simple.

This allows us to deploy a generic database for a website and customise the fields that the user wants to use in XML schemas that we define. We have a nifty CMS that reads our XML schemas and provides the user with the forms to manipulate the data. The XML schemas are file system based, so are easily source controlled and transferred between projects.

When it comes round to styling the front-end site we transform the data in whatever format is required. We can create HTML, RSS, Atom or bespoke pages by defining new transforms. The hidden benefit here is that the XML, regardless of content, follows consistent patterns across our sites, allowing developers to switch between projects with ease.

1. Ignorance hurts only ourselves

Because although we all have our preferences, ignorance hurts only ourselves. As convenient as it would be for the whole world to switch to a single perfect OS, or at least the best available, it just ain’t practical, or sensible.

2. Opportunity

Clever chaps who can still program in assembly languages are never short on jobs, if anything their prospects increase as their skills become rarer. Large companies with an existing code-base often can’t afford the time or resource to rewrite systems from scratch to keep up with the latest trends in programming.

While Vista tends to frustrate me, so does Leopard from time to time. We learn to deal with it. If I decided, as so many do, to pick an OS and announce that all others confound me, I’d be limiting my career, my skills, and my friends.

3. Versatility

I’m in 2 minds over this one. On the one hand consistency helps us work faster, on the other hand versatility keeps our brains ready for change. And change is good. I rarely have a problem with Ctrl+C / Cmd+C, or with the location of close window buttons, my brain seems to happily switch contexts. Most people work hard to carve patterns and routines into their minds, and resist change like the devil. Change necessary, it is good to learn to deal with it.

4. Competition

Everyone knows competition is good, it drives business. As long as I don’t directly work with either Microsoft or Apple, I can happily encourage the use of both. While building GetSignOff we found competing products inspired us, and spurred us on to build a greater product.

5. Make friends & Alienate people

I love being able to talk knowledagbly with Mac fans and Windows fans alike, despite often being accused by both sides as a traitor. Making friends is great, and ridiculous comparisson based arguments are fun, being a regular on both sides of the game makes life more interesting. And life just ain’t worth it if it ain’t interesting.

What does everyone else think? I’m not the only one, why do other people? Other than, ‘I have to’, of course.