Why is WebViewPage in MVC3 abstract?

Question

What is the point of

public class ThemedViewPage<T> : WebViewPage<T>
{
    public override void Execute()
    {

    }
}

What am I supposed to do with it? I ask because I've left it empty and the world is a good place and everything appears to work - just updating a demo I'm running this afternoon and this is a question I'll likely be asked.

Answer 1

Razor works by generating a class that inherits from a base class. The default class it inherits from is WebViewPage<T>. When you express @inherits ThemedViewPage<Something> you're telling the code generator to create a class that then inherits from ThemedViewPage<Something>.

You don't actually implement the Execute method, as the Razor parser which generate this method. It's worth reading Andrew Nurse's Blog, Ben @ BuildStarted's Blog and perhaps even my own as we've been working recently on building a standalone Razor Templating Engine, so needed to learn how it all worked internally.