ASP.NET MVC - Storefront

Well Rob Conery is at it again. This time he is keeping us riveted to our chairs with his new MVC Storefront series. So far he has created 3 screencasts that can be found at:

ASP.NET MVC: Introducing The MVC Storefront Series

ASP.NET MVC: MVC Storefront, Part 2

ASP.NET MVC: MVC Storefront, Part 3

This looks like it is going to be a great series and already has me jonesin for more. I am a firm believer in TDD, but readily admit that I have never been able to do it in its purist form. Lord knows I have tried, but for whatever reason it never worked out. So not only are we getting to see this happen in almost real time, we are getting to learn several new things (at least new to me). So head on over and take a look. Each screencast is approx 10 minutes with the 3rd one being just shy of 15 minutes.

It is surprising that something as innocent as creating a screencast can cause an uproar. Not only did he get the normal praise for his work, but he was accosted  by several TDD purists as well as Frans Bouma. While some people might push this to the wayside and say "whatever", I think it shows the fragmentation that is occurring in the .NET world now days. While many of the purists were friendly in their comments pointing out areas where Rob needed to improve and why things are done a certain way, others chose to just outright flame him. WTH!!! When did it become "cool" to do a drive by commenting? Especially to someone like Rob. I am fortunate to know Rob and consider him a friend. I have never seen anything from Rob that warranted this type of behavior and I believe all the open source work he has done in the past and present show his commitment to the community.

The one comment that really got me was the one from Frans. I read Frans' blog consistently and maybe he is just ruffled from all the flame wars he has been involved in the past few months regarding Alt.Net, but I thought he was a tad harsh on Rob. It as if no one listened to Rob's opening statement about the project, that is was a LEARNING exercise, not the gospel. 

Well I for one cheer you Rob. You are a valuable asset to this community as a whole. There are many bloggers out there that have great posts and really help out. All of you that fall into this category deserve OUR gratitude. I cannot count how many times I have learned something new from a blog post. People like David Hayden, Phil Haack, Bill Simser, Ayende Rahien, Scott Guthrie, Kyle Baley, Jeffery Palermo, and countless others. So to you I raise my mug and say well done. You are the reasons we have a great community.