Is it viable to use ASP.NET MVC 2 Preview 1 in a production application?

Question

I'm not sure if it is viable to use ASP.NET MVC 2 Preview 1 already in a production system? I would like to, because it introduces several much-needed functionalities which are quirky in MVC 1.

Unfortunately I didn't find anything about that topic or roadmap information in ScottGu's release post from 7/31. Is MVC2P1 already pretty much what MVC will be (I don't know what the MVC team considers a preview)? Does anybody have better information on this?

Appreciate your input, thank you!

Answer 1

Based on MVC release 1, there were many previews before the final release. The original ASP.NET MVC 1 Preview 1 was very different from the final release. The final MVC 1 Preview 5 was very similar to the final release, differing very little (if at all), and I think the primary difference was bug fixes.

While MVC 2 is a refinement of MVC 1, it does have some major new initiatives (such as areas), and there is no guarantee that how the current MVC 2 Preview 1 works is how the final product will work. If you need longevity in your production system, I would really not recommend using any preview product in a production capacity unless you are willing to deal with possibly significant changes in the final release.

A side note...if you keep your production system updated with successive preview releases, that should ease your ultimate migration to the final version of MVC 2.

Answer 2

There are lots of improvements to the framework waiting in line for even Preview 2. For example, client-side data validation will be introduced in Preview 2 and will come with new pluggable APIs. The team is also still refining the templated view helpers. Thus, I don't think this is what MVC 2 will be.

All the stability and API change issues aside, I think Microsoft has not release the MVC 2 Preview with a license that lets you use the bits in production environment, ie a go-live license. This seems to be true at least for Preview 1.

I gather this from Scott Gu's blog comment and Phil Haack's blog comment.