The new version of ASP.NET is very, very close.  Scott Guthri just announced that the RC was publicly available.  I’m pumped about this release not only because of my book, but also because this new release makes delivering with ASP.NET sooooooooooooo much easier than WebForms.  One piece of functionality that is not spoken about so much is the ability for a partial view to use a layout (Master Page).  That’s right, folks.  You can have a partial that only displays a snippet of a shopping cart, and that partial can use a master page.  Then, the resulting markup is within the main view, which may also be using a master page.  All in all, we just use ".aspx" views.  We don’t even bother with ".ascx" views since they don’t provide any additional advantage, and they don’t work with master pages.

Great job to the ASP.NET MVC team. 

Prediction:  ASP.NET MVC will supersede WebForms for new project development within 2 years time.  Web Forms isn’t going away by any stretch, but for new projects, I think MVC is going to edge it out, even if just 51% to 49% of new ASP.NET projects.