ASP.Net MVC and N-Tier

Question

Greetings,

Apologies in advance that I have not researched this toughly enough to answer the question myself, but I imagine it would take me some time and I would rather know now before I invest more time in learning it. I couldn't find anything in my initial research..

Why use ASP.Net MVC if your already using a multi-tier architecture (Data Layer, Logic Layer, Presentation Layer)? Other than the fact the controller has more power than the logic layer.

Am I right in thinking I can use nHibernate and all my data access classes, entities, and mappings in the Model part of the MVC?

When using controllers, is it best to separate a lot of the logic into a separate class so I can call it from multiple controllers? Or can I call them from the controllers themselves, considering the fact that I would not want all of them to be Actions, just normal methods.

Thanks

Answer 1

MVC is not to replace N-Tier, it is a way to organize the presentation layer.

I would not say that the controller is more powerful than the logic layer. Instead, the controller (as a part of the presentation layer) should still call the logic layer.

Controllers should only prepare data for views and handle actions from views. You should still use your BLL.

Answer 2

Yes, NHibernate entities can (and they should be) be passed to the views.

This will you get you into some trouble. You should use flattened, null-safe DTOs a.k.a. view models.