Comments on: MVC is Dead

By: IT-eye » SOFEA and SOUI: next step in UI design?

IT-eye » SOFEA and SOUI: next step in UI design? — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:43:36 +0000

[...] is service based user interfaces, also known as SOFEA (Service oriented frontend architecture) or SOUI (service oriented user [...]

By: Nolan Wright

Nolan Wright — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:36:21 +0000

You can leverage the client-side capabilities of Appcelerator (local messaging, effects and controls) in conjunction with MVC frameworks. We also just added a new feature (not yet released) that will let you easily access REST based services from the client. In this case your PHP app could just output JSON (vs HTML).

The other alternative is to use our PHP service capabilities (we are also integrated with Zend). Going this route will allow you to write PHP services that only return data to the client. This provides a very clean separation between the client code (which is done in HTML files) and your service layer (which is done in PHP).

Hope that answers your question.
Thanks.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:11:24 +0000

Thank you, that was a very helpful response. One more question… since it seems that so much is being done on the client, how does Appcelerator mix with generating HTML with a server-side scripting language like PHP? It seems like certain things, like perhaps page headers/footers and navigation, might make more sense to do on the server side…but then I don’t know what sort of architecture I would use, since implementing MVC in PHP (for example) would likely just add confusion.

By: Nolan Wright

Nolan Wright — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:03:44 +0000

Matt,

I think Appcelerator is well suited for any size project.

Our message data payloads are JSON-based, so local messaging (between browser elements) and remote messages (to services) are all JSON based. Our platform includes integrated support for creating services in most any programming language (e.g., Java, Ruby, PHP, Perl, Python, and .NET). Our services are very lightweight. For example, Java serivces are just plain Java objects (POJOs) with a simple @Service annotation.

Appcelerator is perfectly suited for use use-case driven or Agile development. Because our architecture is message-oriented, we enable you to create client-side mock services that respond to remote messages. This allows you to create fully functional prototypes that are 100% reusable. These mock services also define the messaging and data interface that your services will need to implement once you get to that point. We call these prototypes “Interactive Use Cases”. I would be happy to discuss this more with, so feel free to send me any questions at:

nwright@appcelerator.com

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:59:43 +0000

What do you think about the use of Appcelarator for small to midsize projects? I am strongly considering using Appecelerator (though I haven’t actually tried it out yet, so forgive my ignorance), but I would like to understand more about how it works beneath the surface…are the messages sent using just JSON/XML or is a full web service used? A full web service seems like overkill (possibly slowing down performance unnecessarily) for a smaller project.

Also, how does Appcelerator fit into UML and use case-driven development from your perspective? Would the services written in Java/PHP/Python etc. equate roughly to use cases? (Obviously aspects of the use case having to do strictly with the user interface aspects would be handled on the client end by Appcelerator).

By: Andrej

Andrej — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:54:41 +0000

I think you're right about the fact that mvc on the server is dead. But i think the future is standards based client ui rendering: mvc in the browser using javascript, html and css. Javascript is pretty nice with libraries like jquery. Standards based client side rendering: Client Server 2.0.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:03:34 +0000

The MVC pattern is not a panacea, but solves a lot of problems and can be used to produce stable and reliable applications. I guess most of the your interface problems can be solved with little CSS and JavaScript (I wonder what your 1000 lines were all about, since something like a drag-n-drop can be done from scratch in about 60 lines of code, and yes, from scratch, without prototype). Saying MVC is dead sounds very radical, and your arguments did not helped you at all.

By: Using Site Specific Browsers to Enhance the Web Experience

Using Site Specific Browsers to Enhance the Web Experience — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:00:57 +0000

[...] is where the SOUI (service oriented user interface) paradigm of Appcelerator really shines. To refresh the groups [...]

By: Tejus’s Blog » Using Site Specific Browsers to Enhance the Web Experience

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:38:09 +0000

[...] is where the SOUI (service oriented user interface) paradigm of Appcelerator really shines. To refresh the groups [...]

By: Nolan Wright

Nolan Wright — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:01:50 +0000

Steve,

I actually agree with your MVC comment. Our client architecture is very much like the MVC separation you mentioned in your “client-heavy” example. My post was really geared towards one of things you pointed out: “now we’re all back on the client”.

As for your Javascript comment, we are 100% committed to helping people build rich Internet applications faster. To the degree that a particular JS tool or framework helps with that, we will look for ways to incorporate it (or something equivalent to it) into Appcelerator.

Thanks for your comments.