Via Erik, via Pratik Patel, Beyond MVC: A New Look at the Servlet Infrastructure.
This article is the first of two that examine in depth the origins of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern and its misapplication to servlet framework architectures. The purpose of this first piece is threefold. First, it attempts to provide an accurate description of the problems brought about by MVC in servlet middleware. Second, it suggests techniques and strategies for coming up with a new design, one better suited to the needs of servlet infrastructure developers. Third, it offers an example of a completely new, nonderivative pattern we might use moving forward. The second article backs up my assertions by introducing and exploring a reference implementation of the new design.
Ultimately, my goal with these two articles is to convince the servlet middleware community once and for all to put the dark days of MVC behind us and to lay the groundwork for completely new, nonderivative servlet middleware architectures that better address our common needs. Please bear with me; I wouldn't write a piece about MVC in the servlet tier unless I believed it was a funeral dirge.
In the next piece in this series, I'll back up my assertions with actual code and introduce the Shocks Servlet Framework, a full implementation of the design I've outlined here. I'll go over the architecture of the framework, discuss how it evolved conceptually, and show how it addresses each of the five challenges for frameworks Dr. Reenskaug laid out over thirty years ago.
Pratik also links to PicoContainer, which I should take a look at.
Friday, December 12, 2003
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