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POSeparation of concerns; MVC; why?
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copied!<p>I'm currently reading up on OO before I embark upon my next major project. To give you some quick background, I'm a PHP developer, working on web applications. </p> <p>One area that particularly interests me is the User Interface; specifically how to build this and connect it to my OO "model".</p> <p>I've been doing some reading on this area. One of my favourites is this: <a href="http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-07-1999/jw-07-toolbox.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Building user interfaces for object-oriented systems</a> </p> <blockquote> <p>"All objects must provide their own UI"</p> </blockquote> <p>Thinking about <em>my</em> problem, I can see this working well. I build my "user" object to represent someone who has logged into my website, for example. One of my methods is then "display_yourself" or similar. I can use this throughout my code. Perhaps to start with this will just be their name. Later, if I need to adjust to show their name+small avatar, I can just update this one method and hey-presto, my app is updated. Or if I need to make their name a link to their profile, hey-presto I can update again easily from one place.</p> <p>In terms of an OO system; I think this approach works well. Looking on other StackOverflow threads, I found this under "Separation of Concerns": <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/98734/separation-of-concerns">Soc</a></p> <blockquote> <p>"In computer science, separation of concerns (SoC) is the process of breaking a computer program into distinct features that overlap in functionality as little as possible. A concern is any piece of interest or focus in a program. Typically, concerns are synonymous with features or behaviors. Progress towards SoC is traditionally achieved through modularity and encapsulation, with the help of information hiding."</p> </blockquote> <p>To my mind I have achieved this. My user object hides all it's information. I don't have any places in my code where I say $user->get_user_name() before I display it.</p> <p>However, this seems to go against what other people seem to think of as "best practice". </p> <p>To quote the "selected" (green one) answer from the same question:</p> <blockquote> <p>"The separation of concerns is keeping the code for each of these concerns separate. Changing the interface should not require changing the business logic code, and vice versa. Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern is an excellent example of separating these concerns for better software maintainability."</p> </blockquote> <p>Why does this make for better software maintainability? Surely with MVC, my View has to know an awful lot about the Model? Read the JavaWorld article for a detailed discussion on this point: <a href="http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-07-1999/jw-07-toolbox.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Building user interfaces for object-oriented systems</a> </p> <p>Anyway... getting to the actual point, finally!</p> <p><strong>1.</strong> Can anyone recommend any books that discuss this in detail? I don't want an MVC book; I'm not sold on MVC. I want a book that discusses OO / UI, the potential issues, potential solutuions etc.. (maybe including MVC) Arthur Riel's <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/020163385X" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Object-Oriented Design Heuristics</a></p> <p>touches on it (and is an excellent book as well!), but I want something that goes into more detail.</p> <p><strong>2.</strong> Can anyone put forward an argument that is as well-explained as Allen Holub's JavaWorld article that explains why MVC is a good idea? </p> <p>Many thanks for anyone who can help me reach a conclusion on this.</p>

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