I presented this at Houston Tech Fest 2009 back in September. The attendees received the topic well, and I was pretty happy with it, considering I’m still learning a lot myself.
The anticipatory buzz about ASP.NET MVC last year has become a loud clanging about the general MVC pattern this year. We’ve got several people talking about the “M” in MVC (K. Scott, Rob & Javier); the “right” way to make ASP.NET MVC work (Jimmy and Seb); and complete alternatives in the form of FubuMVC (Front Controller), Bistro (Alex), and—related from a web development perspective if not MVC—OpenRasta (Seb). Why do we have all this complexity or all these options? I submit to you that the problems in the pattern as it relates to web design and the complex structures designed to handle it are a result of mixed metaphors; i.e., the web is not a UI but a service platform.
Before moving on, let me just say that by no means am I advocating WebForms or other, similar frameworks. Such things are atrocities that should never have been committed upon this earth. (Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but hopefully you get my point that while I’m about to rag on MVC, some of these other things are worse.)
As I wrote, this thing became far too long for a single post, so I’m breaking it up into sections. I also need to find and tie in the discussion I had with JB about this very thing. I like how that discussion went, although it was based upon other discussions similar to those in the following posts:
1. A History of Violence against HTML
2. New Names for Old Things
3. Serve me up some of that good ole Appl(ication)e Pie
4. The Web is a Service Bus
5. The Gauntlet
So stay tuned. There’s more to come. 
I was finally listening to Alan Dean’s talk on REST from the European VAN. In it, he stated that anyone who fully understands hypermedia is a REST ninja. Well, I understand it, though I’m not sure in the fullest extent that he perhaps means. Nevertheless, I’ll go ahead and claim it considering so few others seem to understand. At least I can help spread the message. More to come on that; I’m writing and working on some things to try to help others get it, too.
Be sure to check out the E-VAN talk by Jim Webber and Ian Robinson on July 20th. Most of what I know I’ve learned from them.