Summary

In this chapter, we examined how web applications inherently follow a 3-tier client-server model, and how a 1-tier architecture can be used for simple applications in ASP.NET. Then we learned how we can logically partition this basic 1-tier 1-layer architectural style into two sub-layers, using code-behind files. We also studied how declarative code-less programming using new Data Source Controls follows a single-layer style.

In a nutshell:

We saw that although we have separated the HTML and code elements, all of the code is still in a single code-behind class (1-tier 1-layer style). For a decently-sized commercial application, having data access and business logic code in the same code-behind file is not a good practice, as code-behind belongs to the UI layer. For further loose coupling, the UI layer should handle only the UI events and should not contain data access or any business logic code. In the coming chapters, we will learn how to break up this 1-tier 1-layer architecture into an n-tier and n-layer architecture so that we can achieve a higher degree of loose coupling, and make our applications more scalable and robust.