We use update panels, several of them actually, all on one page, and they interact with each other, toggling things on and off, setting content based on user actions, etc.

We are very skilled and knowledgeable with AJAX in general, and could have written it ourselves. The problem is, that would take too long.

We had lots of reservations about using them, because they are fat and wasteful.

But let’s be practical. We don’t create web applications to prove how well we understand technology…we create them so people will use them. And the faster you can create them, the faster you get feedback and interaction.

For us, the UpdatePanel gave us what we needed. AJAX functionality coupled with RAD. Can’t beat it, and the ROI folks love it.

Perhaps this post should be more about understanding the trade offs of a technology decision and less about the shortcomings of the UpdatePanel.

After all, you’ve probably interacted with an UpdatePanel on your favorite banking site and never even realized it.

wow… that summarizes my problem with .net completely. I also feel visual studio makes the problem even worse. people that have never done any development besides asp.net with visual studio can build entire complex applications without having a clue how they work. And then any customization beyond a pre-built asp.net control is completely beyond them.
I’ve only been developing with .net for a short time but the longer i use it the more i hate it.

And on your point of “you’re doing it wrong” by setting the visibility, your blanket statement is not accurate. If the div contains ASP.NET validation controls, you need to set the visible property on the div. If you just change the display style, you’ll end up with a validation control hidden but preventing (possibly) the page from being posted. That’s a very bad and confusing thing.

Honestly, I like ASP.NET a lot. The basic templating system, that lets you manipulate the ASP.NET document at the DOM level is fantastic.

The Web Controls, however, are retarded. They make ASP.NET seem like an advanced incarnation of 1990’s web construction rather than the kind of modern framework application that good programmers are building in Ruby, PHP, Java and other languages — it’s like they’re trying to compete with Cold Fusion, not the living languages that people are using now.

I ‘d love to have something that works like Web Controls, but the viewstate concept just isn’t compatible with the modern approach that people call MVC: real internet applications need the ability to display different ‘views’ based on form input and database results — to carry information through a series of related forms. Viewstate is completely incompatible with that, not to mind the browser back button. Reliable applications keep ~most~ form state in hidden variables, or implement something that has the same semantics: there’s a very limited amount of stuff that you can keep in session scope if you want to make apps that really work.

Perhaps Microsoft’s MVC framework for ASP.NET will improve the situation, or perhaps somebody will make something that looks a lot like the web controls but that actually works.