For making sure mvc doesn’t try to handle .js files you can add an ignoreroute when registering routes. However the default ignoreroutes in mvc only work for files in the root of your application. For the proper way to ignore certain filetypes all together take a look at Phill Haack’s post about it:

http://haacked.com/archive/2008/07/14/make-routing-ignore-requests-for-a-file-extension.aspx

By the way, a good way to include your javascript files is by using Url.Content, because it resolves the tilde (~) to the proper url, whether your site resides in the root of your domain or a subdirectory:

<script type="text/javascript" src="<%= Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-1.4.1.js") %>"></script>

The controller for path ‘/Conversation/Scripts/jquery-1.4.1.js’ was not found or does not implement IController.

Being that I’m new to structuremap and mvc2, do you have any thoughts why it thinks a javascript should be an IController? Very weird.

For myself, I don’t see it as a real problem having this ‘tight’ coupling to StructureMap. As long as the use of the ObjectFactory is restricted to as few locations as possible it isn’t very hard to replace it with another IOC container.

And experience teaches me that in practice parts of your software are rarely replaced with leaving your interfaces intact. So that’s not something I aim at when I’m talking about maintainability. For me, maintainability is all about Separation of Concerns, Single Reponsibility and last but not least, comprehensibility. The latter is extremely important when developing software in a team. Who remembers exactly why something was written as it was two years after the fact?

If I may, I am wondering if this article could have a Part II that highlights using the Common Service Locator? As I understand it, this would essentially add a wrapper to StructureMap, making your app even more “maintainable”.