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As a means of learning some web development, I'd like to start a project that will basically aggregate product pricing data similar to Google Shopping. With that being said, I have no idea what technology/tools are appropriate to start with. I have experience in .NET with C# winforms mostly, and I want to use a platform that will allow for a relatively rich UI (which means ASP.NET is out of the question I think). Right now I'm thinking Silverlight, but I'm wondering if something else would be more appropriate?

alexD
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Based on your experience, ASP.NET 4.0 sounds like a good option for you. You can enhance the UI with the AJAX toolkit. Besides that, you can use jQuery with it (and other js libraries).

Chains
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You may want to go through the ASP.NET MVC Music Store tutorial. In just a few hours you'll have a website that is pretty similar to what you're trying to do.

I come from a similar background as you, and I found that I was surprisingly uncomfortable with traditional ASP.NET because it tends to abstract away many of the core aspects of web development. MVC makes things almost as easy, yet seems to give you a lot more control.

Kevin D.
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  • Just to make sure I understand, MVC is a framework built on top of ASP.NET? – alexD Jul 13 '11 at 17:32
  • @alexD -- no, not exactly -- better to think of it as an alternative. It's still working out a lot of kinks, but getting better all the time. Not a bad option. – Chains Jul 13 '11 at 17:53
  • MVC allows use of the "Model View Controller" design pattern, similar to what is done in Ruby on Rails. (The tutorial will explain why MVC is a good pattern.) Also, please note that Microsoft is up to "ASP.NET MVC 3" now. You'll probably want to learn about the latest one, as they introduce a lot of time-savers in each new version. – Kevin D. Jul 13 '11 at 22:57