When I started blogging I wrote my own blogging engine as a way to improve my ASP.NET skills. It was a nice project, but as other blogging engines became more advanced I didn't have time to keep up. So I've wanted to move my blog to another engine for a while. There really is no point in reinventing the wheel and I have more exciting projects now.

I heard about Oxite while I was looking into ASP.NET MVC. MVC is way of structuring applications and has been around for ages, but ASP.NET MVC is a new thing and a thing that I'm quite excited about. Oxite started life as an MVC example and isn't a polished product yet. However, I thought it would be an excellent way to become more familiar with .NET MVC.

It didn't quite meet my needs out of the box. In particular I didn't want my old URLs to break. So I've hacked it about a bit and in the process learnt a lot about MVC. I'm slightly dreading the planned update to Oxite though as the modifications I've made will probably get in the way, but I'm sure the updates will be worth it. I was surprised and pleased when one of the Oxite developers got in touch via twitter to check if I liked Oxite and to offer any help if I needed it. I did end up needing it and he was very helpful, so big thanks go to Erik Porter.

I'm due to start my first .NET MVC project in two weeks and playing about with Oxite has been a big help.