ContosoUniversity.Mvc5 (Asp.Net 4.6)

Further development for the ContosoUniversity tutorial, based on the traditional Asp.Net 4.6 stack:

• Mvc 5
• Entity Framework 6
• Autofac
• AutoMapper

General Issues on Original Project State

• Mixed controller-layer, data-layer and business-domain
• All things done in a single project
• Direct Controller <=> DbContext interaction on controller-layer
• Fragile view generation:
  • mixed use of data-access-specific and view-specific metadata
  • massive use of ViewBag
  • DRY-breaking select-list generation, etc.
• The project is unaware of Inversion-Of-Control

Data Layer Concepts

• General abstractions:
  • IRepository<T> - general repository contract
  • IAsyncRepository<T> - async version of IRepository<T>
  • ISchoolUow - unit-of-work contract
• General implementations:
  • EfRepository<T> - EntityFramework-dependent implementation of IRepository<T>
  • EfAsyncRepository<T> - async version of EfRepository<T>
  • SchoolUow - unit-of-work implementation
• Specific abstractions and implemetations for repositories, like:
  • ICoursesRepository - extending IRepository<Course>
  • IInstructorsRepository - extending IRepository<Instructor>
  • ...etc
• Data-layer is accessible for the controller via the ctor-injected implementation of ISchoolUow
• Extending standard repository interface with extension-methods (like .FindBy(), .Query(), etc.)

Relations Between Data Layer Contracts

Relations Between Data Layer Implementations

Controller Layer Concepts

• Introduced the BaseController, backed with the unit-of-work and disposing logic for it
• Views are generated from the viewmodels (not domain or entities)
• Viewmodels mapped from entities with AutoMapper
• Entity-2-viewmodel mappings for AutoMapper are built with the self-discovering process (viewmodels implement IMapFrom<T> or IHaveCustomMappings)
• Viewmodels generally have relations to other viewmodels (not domain or entities)
• Viewmodels concerns only presentational metadata
• Widget-based concept for structuring complex viewmodels
• Fluent select-list generation - .ToSelectList() extension-method for IEnumerable<T>'s