Short and Clean Ad-Hoc View-Controller sample for quickstarting a MVC Project

Mvc_Quick

class MainPageViewModel
{
 // a place on page
 public string Categories { get; set; }
 // other place on the page
 public List<Products> Products { get; set; }
}

// Controller:
public class HomeController : Controller
{
    // GET: /Home/
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        MainPageViewModel vm = new MainPageViewModel();
        vm.Categories = GetCategories();
        vm.Products.Add(...); 
        return View(vm); 
    }

    string[] GetCategories()
    {
     DataTable data = GetDataFromQuery("SELECT * FROM Categories");
    }

    string[] GetProducts()
    {
     DataTable data = GetDataFromQuery("SELECT * FROM Products");
    }

    DataTable GetDataFromQuery(string query)
    {
        SqlDataAdapter adap = 
             new SqlDataAdapter(query, "<your connection string>");
        DataTable data = new DataTable();
        adap.Fill(data);
        return data;
    }  
}

// Razor code

@model MainPageViewModel 
@{ ViewBag.Title = "MainPage"; }

<div id="left-bar">
  <ul>
    @foreach (var category in Model.Categories)
    {
        <li>@category</li>
    }
  </ul>
</div>
<div id="center-content">
    <ul>
    @foreach (var product in Model.Products)
    {
        <li>@product.Name</li>
        <li>@product.Price..</li>
    }
  </ul>  
</div>