Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!johnson
From: johnson@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Is the Model-View-Controller concep
Message-ID: <80500043@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 8 Nov 88 18:36:00 GMT
References: <3098@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
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Nf-ID: #R:uoregon.uoregon.edu:3098:p.cs.uiuc.edu:80500043:000:1173
Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!johnson    Nov  8 12:36:00 1988


>I am interested in your wise judgement(?) on the Model-View-Controller User 
>Interface (oops!) Paradigm in Smalltalk-80. There is a big difference of 
>opinion on this lately. What the question is : 
>
>Is MVC a good idea? If yes, then is its Smalltalk implementation good?

Good compared to what?  MVC was a major step forward in the early 80's.
Lots of systems have taken ideas from it and built upon them.  There
are pieces of MVC that desparately need to be rewritten, like
ParagraphEditor, and some features that, in retrospect, were mistakes,
like the polling behavior of controllers.  However, if you are programming
in Smalltalk then you should use MVC until you know enough to think you
can do better.

If you mean should the user interface be separate from the application
and should an object-oriented system be used to build the user interface
then the answer is "yes".

If you mean should any view be capable of having subviews and should
controllers poll then the answer is "no".

If you mean should views and controllers be separate objects or should
one object implement both a presentation and user interaction then the
answer is "maybe".

Ralph Johnson