Sitecore Deployment Options

Here's a good blog that shows some of the tools that are available out there for team sitecore development and deployment:

http://sitecore.stockpick.nl/english/development-and-deployment/

Three Tier Architecture in Sitecore

As you can probably tell, I'm setting up a new project and am currently researching all different architectural approaches. Here's one for people who are used to 3-tier architecture, using Glass Mapper and Ninject dependency injector.

http://ctor.io/three-layered-architecture-with-sitecore/
https://github.com/SUGCH/ThreeLayeredArchitectureWithSitecore

Sitecore Best Practices

I came across this blog that clearly posts a few Sitecore best practices. It's a really great compilation of things to keep in mind.  I don't 100% agree with all of it, but it's nice to have everything laid out in one place to at least consider:

http://www.cmsbestpractices.com/sitecore-presentation-layer-best-practices/

The Importance of the Page Editor

The page editor is one of the things that every Sitecore developer needs to keep in mind, because inevitably, the client is going to want to have the ability to modify content straight from the browser.  That's probably one of the things that sold them on Sitecore in the first place, right?

Here's a great article that shows a lot of tips on how to ensure that your page editor still works while using Glass Mapper in Sitecore.

http://www.coreworks.co/sitecore-mvc-and-the-page-editor

View Models and Domain Models, A Hybrid Approach

Here's an interesting hybrid approach to View Models vs Domain Models, using Glass Mapper in Sitecore:

https://sitecore.unic.com/2014/08/29/differentiate-viewmodels-and-domainmodels-in-view-renderings-using-glass-mapper

Sitecore MVC Project Up and Running in 10 minutes! (Using GLASS)

I recently discovered an ORM tool for Sitecore called Glass, which seems pretty nifty. It's made by these guys called Hedgehog, who also created TDS, which is sort of a repository tool for all things Sitecore (which is also "pretty nifty").  Here's a brief youtube video that shows in real-time, setting up a Sitecore MVC project in under ten.

For MVC, start around 12:15

Sitecore MVC Approaches

Here's a great blog I came across that outlines some of the different types of renderings you can use in Sitecore MVC, and how to use the.

http://www.matthewdresser.com/sitecore/carousel-sitecore-mvc-(part-2-controller-renderings)

I think most people coming from a .NET MVC background would probably prefer the Controller Rendering option, which is explained in the link above.

Options for Sitecore MVC Architecture

One of the great things about Sitecore MVC, or MVC in general, or coding in general I guess, is that you have lots and lots of options.  Here is a great video that demonstrates some of the common ways you can architect your Sitecore MVC application:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW_rQp9bMmE

The basic choices are:

• Use existing Sitecore pipeline, sans custom controller or custom model
• Create a custom model, but use Sitecore's existing pipeline
• Create a custom model and also a custom controller
• Create a custom model with custom controller and repository
• Create a view model, model, customer controller and repository

The deeper you go, the more "MVC" you get, but it's awesome that Sitecore allows you to use any of these options.

A few highlights:

If you want the page editor to work on your rendering, make sure to use the FieldRenderer.Render() method rather than just populating a string.