The Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture pattern revolutionizes complex application development by breaking it down into manageable components. This approach enables multiple developers to collaborate seamlessly on an application.

When first encountering MVC patterns, many find the jargon overwhelming. However, taking a step back to understand what MVC is and what it can achieve makes it much easier to grasp and apply the pattern to any web application.

What is MVC?

MVC stands for Model-View-Controller. In this context:

  • Model: The backend that handles data logic
  • View: The frontend or graphical user interface (GUI)
  • Controller: The brains of the application, controlling how data is displayed

Trygve Reenskaug first introduced the concept of MVCs as a way to develop desktop application GUIs. Today, the MVC pattern is widely used for modern web applications due to its scalability, maintainability, and ease of expansion.

Why Should You Use MVC?

The key benefit of MVC lies in separation of concerns, or SoC. By breaking up frontend and backend code into separate components, you can manage and modify either side independently without affecting the other.

However, this is easier said than done, especially when multiple developers need to update, modify, or debug a full-fledged application simultaneously.

How to Use MVC

To illustrate the MVC pattern, let's examine a web application that demonstrates how these concepts work together. My Car Clicker application is a variation of the well-known Cat Clicker app, with some key differences:

  • No cats, only muscle cars images (sorry cat lovers!)
  • Multiple car models are listed
  • There are multiple click counters
  • It only displays the selected car

Now let's dive into these three components that make up the MVC architecture pattern.

Model (Data)

The model's job is to manage data. Whether it comes from a database, API, or JSON object, the model is responsible for handling it.

In the Car Clicker application, the model object contains an array of car objects with all the necessary information (data) needed for the app. It also manages the current car being displayed with a variable initially set to null.

Views (UI)

The view's job is to decide what the user will see on their screen and how. The Car Clicker app has two views: carListView and CarView.

Both views have two critical functions that define what each view wants to initialize and render. These functions determine what the user will see and how.

Controller (Brain)

The controller's responsibility is to pull, modify, and provide data to the user. Essentially, it's the link between the view and model. Through getter and setter functions, the controller pulls data from the model and initializes the views. If there are any updates from the views, it modifies the data with a setter function.

Let's get started!