Came across this tonight while searching for something else, and found it so interesting I thought I’d pass it on.

To me, it clearly shows the origins of the spine of what we now call Rails, around which all of the rest of the Rails framework has taken shape. Action Pack is the architectural decision to divide the response of an http request into two clearly distinguishable parts: a controller object and an HTML rendering object.

ASP and ASP.NET 1.0 didn’t do this at all. Even with the attempt to use partial classes in ASP.NET 2.0 as a way to separate the logic code from the presentation code, I bet most ASP.NET developers don’t really understand it. Microsoft was desparate to switch from the “code behind” model to the “code beside” model. Has it really helped the average web developer out there, who is trying to use the .NET framework to build a database-driven web app, actually ship code any sooner?

To the contrary, most of the new features in ASP.NET 2.0 seem to be in the sheer number of presentation-layer components and datagrid widgets you now get “out of the box”. I personally don’t see any real improvements to the architecture of a .NET web app, which is unfortunate because that’s where 80% of a .NET website’s problems can usually be found.

I’m guessing that part of the problem dates back to the inception of ASP and even ASP.NET – the focus was on getting WebControls to be dragged out of a toolbox and onto a Form Designer. Not on setting up an easy to follow framework for building your application.

Whereas, Rails started with the important pieces first – laying out the architecture, making it easy to follow MVC best practices, and making it really easy to test. And isn’t that what an application framework should really be all about?