Model View Controller

Websites have evolved over the past few years from basic HTML pages with some CSS to very complicated programs with hundreds of programmers working on them simultaneously. As a result, developers put out their projects using various design patterns to deal with these sophisticated web apps, making the code more straightforward to work with. Model View Controller, often known as MVC, is the most well-known of these patterns.

What is a Model View Controller? 

An application is divided into three primary logical components using the Model View Controller architectural pattern: the model, the view, and the controller. Each of these elements is designed to manage particular application development elements. As a result, MVC is among the most widely accepted web development structures for building flexible and scalable projects. 

Trygve Reenskaug was the person who first proposed the idea of MVCs as a technique to create desktop program GUIs. Today, modern online applications are built using the MVC pattern because it makes them scalable, maintainable, and simple to grow.

In short, MVC stands for:

• Model: The database’s backend, which has all the data logic
• View: The graphical user interface or frontend (GUI)
• Controller: The software’s central processing unit that manages how data is presented

Model View Controller Architecture 

Using the MVC design, developers can separate the frontend and backend code into separate sections. This makes it much simpler to control and make adjustments to either side without affecting the other.

In recent years, JavaScript has dominated the backend due to its increasing popularity. As a result, full-fledged JavaScript applications are increasingly choosing to use the MVC architecture pattern in one manner or another. Frameworks come and go, but the ideas derived from the MVC design pattern have remained constant.

Here are the three components that makeup Model View Controller architecture:

Model

All of the user’s data-related logic is represented by the Model component. This could be any additional data related to business logic or the data that is being passed between the View and Controller components. A Customer object, for instance, can obtain customer data from a database, edit it, and then update back the data into the database or employ it to render data.

View

The app’s whole UI functionality is implemented in the View part of the architecture. For example, the Customer view will include every UI element with which the end user interacts, such as textbox, dropdown menus, etc.

Controller

In order to process the business logic and inflow of requests, developers manipulate the data using the Model component and interact with Views to generate the output. Controllers serve as an interface between the Model and View components.

Using the Customer Model to maintain the database, the Customer controller will handle all interactions and values from the View. The same controller will show customer data. 

Model View Controller Example

Example 1 for Beginners

1. Suppose you visit a restaurant. You won’t cook food in the kitchen, even though you can do so at home. Instead, you visit the establishment and wait for the waiter to arrive.
2. The server now approaches you, and you place your dinner order. The server has only written down the specifics of your food order; he is unaware of who you are or what you desire.
3. The waiter then makes his way to the kitchen. The server does not prepare your dish in the kitchen.
4. The cook prepares your food. Your order and your table number are given to the waiter.
5. Then a cook makes food for you. The dish is prepared by him using ingredients. Let’s say you select the vegetable sandwich option. He then uses the refrigerator to get the bread, tomatoes, potatoes, pepper, onion, and cheese that he needs.
6. The chef finally hands the waiter the dinner. Moving this meal outside the kitchen is now the waiter’s responsibility.
7. The server is now aware of your ordered foods and how to serve them.

In this example, 

• Model = Cook
• View = You
• Controller = Waiter
• Data = Refrigerator

Example 2 For Beginners

Another example of the MVC architecture is the mechanism of a car.

There are three essential components in every car.

• User interface = View (Break, steering wheel, panels, gear lever, etc.)
• Controller = Mechanism (Engine)
• Model = Storage (Petrol or Diesel tank)

Fuel for the car’s engine is drawn from storage. However, it only functions with the aforementioned user interface components.

Example 3 for Professionals

Let’s say an end user requests a list of students enrolled in a class from a server. The controller that deals with students would then get that request from the server. That controller would then ask the student model to return a list of every student enrolled in a class.

The model would ask the database to deliver a list of all students and then give the controller that list. The controller will ask the view related to students to provide a summary of the list of students if the response from the model is successful. This view uses the controller’s list of students to display the list in browser-friendly HTML.

After that, the controller will take that presentation and give it to the user once more. Hence, the request is fulfilled. In the event that the model had earlier reported an error, the controller would deal with it by instructing the view responsible for handling errors to show a presentation for that specific error. The user would then receive the error presentation rather than the student list display.

The above example demonstrates how the model manages all of the data. The controller only instructs the model and view on what to do, while the view manages all of the presentations. This forms the basis of a standard Model View Controller architecture. 

Benefits of Using MVC 

1. Large-scale online applications are organised because the code is divided into three layers, which makes it very simple to split and arrange the logic of web apps.
2. The main benefit of employing such coding standards is that they make it easier to add new functionality and discover certain areas of code fast.
3. The MVC design enables using Asynchronous Method Invocation (AMI), allowing developers to create web applications that load more quickly, given how effectively JavaScript and its libraries integrate with it. 
4. The MVC methodology makes it simple to change the entire application. The MVC pattern makes adding and upgrading the new type of views simpler.
5. Since the code is divided into three levels, one developer can work on one piece (like the view), while another can concentrate on any other section (like the controller), all at once while creating web applications using the MVC model.
6. The MVC framework allows you to develop your own view engine by returning unformatted data. 
7. MVC offers a simple method for creating RESTful URLs that are SEO-friendly in order to increase traffic from a specific application.
8. The MVC paradigm assists in the design stage of the application since it provides a roadmap for the developer on how to organise their concepts into actual code.

Conclusion

The MVC design pattern is a great method for creating web apps. Many businesses nowadays are choosing to create these applications based on the MVC design because the MVC design makes it simple to create several view components for your model component. It allows you to generate several view components, preventing code duplication by separating data from business logic.

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