3.1. ASP.NET WebForms

ASP.NET WebForms was released as part of the .NET platform in 2002. The release was a major milestone for developers all over the world, allowing them to produce more powerful web applications using the new C# language and Visual Studio.NET. One of the key advantages to ASP.NET was being able to quickly develop applications by taking advantage of built-in controls that allowed you to quickly display, edit, and delete data from a database and, in later versions, complete membership systems with the hard work already done for you.

The result was developers being able to drag and drop controls onto a page and then release the site. It allowed for a very quick turn around, but at no point was architecture of the application or testability considered. Developers found that as their requirements grew and they needed to move beyond the built-in controls they faced major problems. One of these problems was testability and being unable to effectively test ASP.NET applications. While this is still partly true, with some consideration you can unit test ASP.NET WebForms applications.