ASP.NET MVC: Using Kigg as a base MVC application

Question

Looking to create my first MVC application. Coming from WebForms I'm pretty excited to create an application that I can easily test.

I have looked into Kigg (the Digg clone done in MVC) and from the looks of it, it uses many of the best-practices in its architecture.

Having said that, would their approach be a good basis to base my web application (social networking site) on?

I would say I understand about 80% of the code and can probably remove all of the stuff I would not need (in terms of the business objects he uses along with business rules).

Would the benefit of having an architecture that uses best-practices in outweigh the cost of added complexity that perhaps "You Ain't Gonna Need It"?

Answer 1

My suggestion for you is to start from scratch. Copy all the good things (pieces of code, patterns, good practices, etc) you see in KIGG if you like, but try to write/rewrite them yourself (if some class or piece of code is useful as it is, just copy/paste, there's no need to reach the extremes :P). That way you'll get the following benefits:

• A solution that fits your exact needs (nothing more, nothing less).
• You will learn a lot faster (and a lot more!) by writing your own code rather than just reusing others code.
• You will feel comfortable with your own code standards which will make even easier to read the code.
• You can personalize the stuff you like.
• You probably will get a lot of errors or bugs if this is your first ASP.NET MVC app, but that is good, you'll learn a lot from these first mistakes.

That's the way I see it...