Mvc Front End Development | Components[Edit]

The MVC architecture pattern turns complex application development into a much more manageable process. It allows several developers to simultaneously work on the application.

When I first learned about MVC patterns, I was intimidated by all the jargon. And even more so when I started applying these concepts to an actual application.

By taking a step back to focus on what MVC is and what it can accomplish, it’s much easier to understand and apply the pattern to any web application.

An overview of the most widely used frameworks

This article attempts to compare popular JavaScript frameworks for front-end development in 2021. Becoming an expert at one or more of these JS frameworks will drastically enhance your productivity and help you master programming languages.

The number of functionality supplied by each framework is similar, but their opinions and implementations differ on the best strategy to follow while developing a web application. Some frameworks are fairly flexible in terms of using them, while others demand that you stick to their predefined norms.

By comparing the philosophies of various frameworks, you may select one suitable for your application’s requirements. Each framework has much real-world experience and comes with documentation and community assistance.

Let’s get started!

Backbone.js provides a plugin and add-on library that can provide whatever functionality your application demands.

Backbone is more of a utility library than a full-fledged MVC framework when used without plugins.

Because of Backbone’s modularity, you may fine-tune it to utilize a different templating engine if your application requires it. As a result, Backbone is a good choice for designing a web application with many moving parts.

Pros: unopinionated, great track record of being used in large web apps (WordPress, Rdio, Hulu), source code extremely simple to understand, the gentle learning curve

Cons: External dependencies are required (underscore), memory management can be difficult for novices, there is no built-in two-way binding, it is unopinionated, and it requires plugins to become as feature-complete as other MVC frameworks.

Google created and developed Angular.js, which is rapidly gaining popularity. Using custom HTML tags and components to express the objectives of your application is Angular’s standout feature.

It comes with an HTML generator that lets users construct their domain-specific language; this can be a very useful tool. The approach differs from other frameworks, which attempt to address HTML’s problems by abstracting HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and giving alternate methods for manipulating the DOM.

Pros: Google-backed dependency injection, built-in testing framework, built-in form validation, directives, and extremely easy debugging

Cons: High learning curve, data-binding can be difficult for pages with much data, and transitions between showing and hiding views are difficult to construct.

EmberJS is an opinionated, modular framework that may be straightforward and intuitive to work with if you follow the Ember style of building applications.

Compared to other frameworks, its convention over configuration approach implies it provides an appropriate starting point for the design.When working with EmberJS, it will seem very familiar if you’ve worked with Ruby on Rails.

Pros: Ember Data makes syncing with JSON APIs much easier, requires little configuration, and follows a convention over the configuration approach.

Cons: Lacks comprehensive testing tools, makes it difficult to incorporate third-party libraries due to its opinionated approach, has a steep learning curve at first, and has an unreliable API.

KnockoutJS simplifies dynamic UIs with an MVVM (Model – View – ViewModel) pattern. It provides declarative bindings that build even the most complex UIs while maintaining the underlying data model.

Bindings make custom behaviors like sorting a table simple to create in only minimum lines of code.

As for compatibility, KnockoutJS works with all modern browsers and legacy browsers (Internet Explorer 6).

Pros: Data binding is intuitive and quick to learn, custom events allow for easy implementation of custom behavior, and inter-application connections are managed with a dependency graph, ensuring high performance even for data-heavy applications.

Cons: HTML templates/views can get messy if lots of bindings are used, end-to-end functionality (URL routing, data-access) is not available out of the box, and no third-party dependencies

Evan You created Vue.js, a progressive JavaScript framework launched in 2014. Vue is also one of the most rapidly expanding JavaScript frameworks in popularity and acceptance.

Vue.js supports two-way data binding, server-side rendering, and tools with vue-cli. It has extensive online documentation and many free Vue.js tutorials from the community. Vue is also suitable for large-scale projects.

MVC Frameworks

JavaScript has grown in popularity, and it’s taken over the backend in recent years. More and more full-blown JavaScript applications have opted for the MVC architecture pattern in one way or another.

Frameworks come and go, but what has been constant are the concepts borrowed from the MVC architecture pattern.

Some of the early frameworks that applied these concepts were KnockoutJS, Django, and Ruby on Rails.

Vocab

• 
Model

  The Model is focused solely on the data, and data related logic of the application. The data can both relate to the business data of the application, or the data that is being transacted between the View and Controller.
• 
View

  The View is concerned only with the UI of the application, and should not know what the business logic of the application is. The only logic it should be concerned with is how to display data.
• 
Controller

  The Controller acts as the go-between for the Model and the View. It handles user interaction coming from the View, and determines any changes that may need to be made to the Model. Vice versa, it can also manipulate data from the Model to give to the View, for rendering a final output.
• 
Separation of Concerns

  This refers to the idea that each module or layer in an application is only responsible for one thing and should not contain code that deals with other parts of the application. Separating concerns reduces code complexity by breaking a large application down into many smaller units of encapsulated functionality.

The Benefits of Using the MVC Framework

Rapid and Parallel Development:

MVC allows for rapid and parallel development. If an MVC model is used to design a web application, one programmer may work on the view while the other works on the controller to generate the website’s business logic.

As a result, an application built using the MVC model can be completed three times faster than an application built using alternative development patterns.

Capacity to Provide Multiple Perspectives:

You can construct numerous views for a model in the MVC Pattern. There is a growing desire for additional ways to access your application today, and MVC development is a wonderful way to meet that demand.

Furthermore, code duplication is minimal because the data and business logic are separated from the display.

Asynchronous Technique Support:

The MVC design can also be used with the JavaScript Framework. Now MVC apps can operate with PDF files, site-specific browsers, and desktop widgets.

MVC also offers an asynchronous method, which aids developers in creating a fast-loading application.

The Change Does Not Affect The Entire Model:

The user interface changes more frequently in any online application than in the.net development company’s business principles. You make frequent modifications to your online application, such as changing colors, fonts, and screen layouts and introducing new smartphone and tablet device compatibility, which is understandable.

Adding a new view is also simple using the MVC paradigm because the Model component is independent of the Views portion. As a result, any modifications to the Model will not impact the overall design.

MVC Model Returns Data Without Formatting:

The MVC pattern returns data with no formatting applied. As a result, the same components can be utilized with any interface and called for use. HTML, for example, may format any data, but it can also be produced with Macromedia Flash or Dreamweaver.

Other JS Frameworks worth mentioning

Agility.js

It is a client-side MVC library for Javascript that allows you to write maintainable code without sacrificing development speed.

CanJS

It is a suite of client-side JavaScript architectural frameworks that aim to strike a balance between innovation and stability. It is aimed at experienced developers working on sophisticated projects with a bright future. CanJS is a Javascript MVC Frameworks category tech stack tool. CanJS is an open-source project with 1.9K stars on GitHub and 420 forks.

Spine.JS

The spine is a lightweight and basic framework that doesn’t have a lot of complicated widgets to configure and customize.It attempts to offer the most user-friendly documentation of any JavaScript framework.

Motivation[edit]

As Alan Kay wrote in 2003, the original motivation behind the MVC was to allow creation of a graphical interface for any object.[40] That was outlined in detail in Richard Pawson’s book Naked Objects.[40]

Trygve Reenskaug, originator of MVC at PARC, has written that “MVC was conceived as a general solution to the problem of users controlling a large and complex data set.”[6]

In their 1991 guide Inside Smalltalk, Carleton University computer science professors Wilf LaLonde and John Pugh described the advantages of Smalltalk-80-style MVC as:

• independence of presentation and data, e.g. multiple views on one model simultaneously,
• composable presentation widgets, e.g. one view used as a subview of another,
• switchable input modes, by swapping one controller out for another during runtime, and
• independence of input and output processing, via the separate responsibilities of controllers and views.[41]

How to Use MVC

To better illustrate the MVC pattern, I’ve included a web application that shows how these concepts all work.

My Car Clicker application is a variation of a well-known Cat Clicker app.

Here are some of the major differences in my app:

1. No cats, only muscle cars images (sorry cat lovers!)
2. Multiple car models are listed
3. There are multiple click counters
4. 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 simply manage the data. Whether the data is from a database, API, or a JSON object, the model is responsible for managing it.

In the Car Clicker application, the model object contains an array of car objects with all the information (data) needed for the app.

It also manages the current car being displayed with a variable that’s initially set to

null

.


const model = { currentCar: null, cars: [ { clickCount: 0, name: 'Coupe Maserati', imgSrc: 'img/black-convertible-coupe.jpg', }, { clickCount: 0, name: 'Camaro SS 1LE', imgSrc: 'img/chevrolet-camaro.jpg', }, { clickCount: 0, name: 'Dodger Charger 1970', imgSrc: 'img/dodge-charger.jpg', }, { clickCount: 0, name: 'Ford Mustang 1966', imgSrc: 'img/ford-mustang.jpg', }, { clickCount: 0, name: '190 SL Roadster 1962', imgSrc: 'img/mercedes-benz.jpg', }, ], };


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 are where the app decides what the user will see and how.

carListView


const carListView = { init() { // store the DOM element for easy access later this.carListElem = document.getElementById('car-list'); // render this view (update the DOM elements with the right values) this.render(); }, render() { let car; let elem; let i; // get the cars to be render from the controller const cars = controller.getCars(); // to make sure the list is empty before rendering this.carListElem.innerHTML = ''; // loop over the cars array for(let i = 0; i < cars.length; i++) { // this is the car we've currently looping over car = cars[i]; // make a new car list item and set its text elem = document.createElement('li'); elem.className = 'list-group-item d-flex justify-content-between lh-condensed'; elem.style.cursor = 'pointer'; elem.textContent = car.name; elem.addEventListener( 'click', (function(carCopy) { return function() { controller.setCurrentCar(carCopy); carView.render(); }; })(car) ); // finally, add the element to the list this.carListElem.appendChild(elem); } }, };


CarView


const carView = { init() { // store pointers to the DOM elements for easy access later this.carElem = document.getElementById('car'); this.carNameElem = document.getElementById('car-name'); this.carImageElem = document.getElementById('car-img'); this.countElem = document.getElementById('car-count'); this.elCount = document.getElementById('elCount'); // on click, increment the current car's counter this.carImageElem.addEventListener('click', this.handleClick); // render this view (update the DOM elements with the right values) this.render(); }, handleClick() { return controller.incrementCounter(); }, render() { // update the DOM elements with values from the current car const currentCar = controller.getCurrentCar(); this.countElem.textContent = currentCar.clickCount; this.carNameElem.textContent = currentCar.name; this.carImageElem.src = currentCar.imgSrc; this.carImageElem.style.cursor = 'pointer'; }, };


Controller (Brain)

The controller’s responsibility is to pull, modify, and provide data to the user. Essentially, the controller is 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.


const controller = { init() { // set the current car to the first one in the list model.currentCar = model.cars[0]; // tell the views to initialize carListView.init(); carView.init(); }, getCurrentCar() { return model.currentCar; }, getCars() { return model.cars; }, // set the currently selected car to the object that's passed in setCurrentCar(car) { model.currentCar = car; }, // increment the counter for the currently-selected car incrementCounter() { model.currentCar.clickCount++; carView.render(); }, }; // Let's goooo! controller.init();


Examining Other Java Frameworks: Vaadin, Grails and Apache Struts

As previously mentioned, there are dozens of Java frameworks, but Spring Boot and Spring MVC are by far the most popular when it comes to web development. Here are some other Java frameworks that are popular for specific applications:

Vaadin

Vaadin is anopen source framework for building web applications in Java. It includes a large library of UI frameworks and can be useful for building applications where user experience is paramount.

Grails

Grails is designed to be a high-productivity Java Framework. It is based on the Apache Groovy language and is an open source framework for the JVM built on top of Spring Boot.

Apache Struts

Apache Struts is an open source alternative to Spring MVC. One key difference between these Java frameworks is that Apache Struts has more dependencies and is therefore more closely coupled. Apache Struts also has a history of security issues so users should pay attention for updates.

Interactions[edit]

In addition to dividing the application into these components, the model–view–controller design defines the interactions between them.[37]

• The model is responsible for managing the data of the application. It receives user input from the controller.
• The view renders presentation of the model in a particular format.
• The controller responds to the user input and performs interactions on the data model objects. The controller receives the input, optionally validates it and then passes the input to the model.

As with other software patterns, MVC expresses the “core of the solution” to a problem while allowing it to be adapted for each system.[38] Particular MVC designs can vary significantly from the traditional description here.[39]

Vậy cái gì sẽ nắm giữ tương lai?

Tôi không nghĩ rằng chúng ta sẽ trở lại với kiến trúc MVC cổ điển trong các ứng dụng front end của mình.

Ngày càng có nhiều lập trình viên nhận thấy lợi thế của các kiến trúc một chiều (unidirectional) và component, việc này sẽ tạo ra các thư viện và các công cụ tốt hơn.

Vậy loại kiến trúc này sẽ là giải pháp tốt nhất cho 5 năm tới? Rất có thể, nhưng một lần nữa, không có gì là chắc chắn cả.

5 năm trước, không ai có thể dự đoán cách chúng ta sẽ viết ứng dụng như hiện tại. Vì thế tôi không nghĩ nó là an toàn để đặt cược tương lai ngay lúc này.

How do you use front-end development patterns like MVC, MVVM, or Flux?

Front-end development patterns are ways of organizing your code and data flow in web applications. They help you structure your project, avoid duplication, and manage complexity. In this article, you will learn how to use three popular patterns: MVC, MVVM, and Flux.

MVC stands for Model-View-Controller. It is a pattern that separates your application into three components: the model, which handles the data and logic; the view, which displays the user interface; and the controller, which mediates the interaction between the model and the view. MVC is widely used in frameworks like Ruby on Rails, Laravel, and Django.

• Lawrence Shah

  Full Stack Engineer at Qualified.com

  – Replace “logic” with “business logic”. – Capitalize “model”, “view”, and “controller” to make them read more like named concepts. Also easier to scan. – Use a bullet point list; semi-colons can make sentences long and hard to read.

• Shayan Hosseinali

  Frontend Developer at LiaTeam

  MVC separates your application into three part, not three component. because component has other mean for front-end developers

MVVM stands for Model-View-ViewModel. It is a variation of MVC that introduces a fourth component: the view model, which acts as a bridge between the model and the view. The view model exposes the data and methods that the view needs, and reacts to the view’s events and changes. MVVM is commonly used in frameworks like Angular, Vue, and React.

Flux is a pattern that implements a one-way data flow in your application. It consists of four components: the action, which represents a user or system event; the dispatcher, which broadcasts the action to the rest of the system; the store, which holds the state and logic of the application; and the view, which renders the user interface based on the store’s state. Flux is the basis of libraries like Redux, MobX, and NgRx.

When deciding which pattern is best for your project, there is no definitive answer. It depends on personal preference, the complexity and scale of your application, the features and benefits of the frameworks and libraries you use, and the trade-offs and challenges of each pattern. Generally speaking, MVC should be used if you want a simple way to separate your concerns and are working with server-side rendering or full-stack frameworks. Meanwhile, MVVM should be used if you need more flexibility in data binding and are working with client-side rendering or component-based frameworks. Finally, Flux should be used if you want more control over data flow and are working with large and dynamic applications or state management libraries.

• Adam Tolley

  Full Stack Web Applications Architect. (The acronym sounds like fuh-schwah)

  – MVC and MVVM are patterns that apply to the architecture of an entire application web application – Flux is one of many patterns used for managing (usually global) state for that web application – Flux is not comparable to MVC or MVVM – Flux is comparable with Reactive Extensions, the Observer Pattern, Shared Global objects, React state hooks (useState, useEffect, useContext), State machines, Pub-Sub and “Signal” based systems, among others.

• Che’ J. Holloway

  Agreed. AngularJS & before it KnockoutJS, is the way that the framework is set up, they are MVVM. All changes (the magic) happens in the ViewModel. (Either with one-way, or 2-way binding, the choice is yours) Other frameworks are generally MVC. As said before, it’s a way/ dev pattern that is a tried and true way to seperate concerns and let The Controller handle the business logic. It’s not really concerned about data binding. And Flux, just a dev pattern so your data only flows ONE WAY. There’s NO 2-Way data-binding if The Flux pattern is done right.

The best way to learn a front-end development pattern is to practice it with a real or simulated project. You can start by following a tutorial or a course that teaches you the basics of the pattern and how to use it with a specific framework or library. Then, you can apply your knowledge to your own project or a challenge that requires you to use the pattern. You can also read the documentation and the source code of the frameworks and libraries that implement the pattern, and compare and contrast different approaches and solutions.

To improve your skills with front-end development patterns, you need to keep learning and experimenting. You can read articles and books that explain the concepts and principles behind the patterns, and how they solve common problems in web development. You can also watch videos and podcasts that showcase different examples and use cases of the patterns, and how they work in different scenarios and contexts. You can also join online communities and forums where you can ask questions, share your experiences, and get feedback from other developers who use the patterns.

More relevant reading

• AngularJSHow do you use dependency injection to test your AngularJS controllers?
• Front-end DevelopmentHow do you select the right front-end framework?
• Front-end DevelopmentHow do you master JavaScript fundamentals for front-end development?
• Front-end DevelopmentHow do you blend front-end and back-end development?

More and more front-end developers are adopting unidirectional architectures. So what’s the future for the classic Model-View-Controller (MVC) approach?

In order to understand how we got to this point, let’s first review the evolution of front-end architecture.

Over the past four years, I’ve worked on a great deal of web projects and spent a good amount of time architecting front ends and integrating framework into them.

Before 2010, JavaScript — that programming language jQuery was written in — was used mostly for adding DOM manipulation to traditional websites. Developers didn’t seem to care much about the architecture itself. Things like the revealing module pattern were good enough to structure our codebases around.

Our current discussion of front-end vs back-end architecture only came about in late 2010. This is when developers started taking the concept of a single page application seriously. This is also when frameworks like Backbone and Knockout started to become popular.

Since many of the principles these frameworks were built around were quite new at the time, their designers had to look elsewhere for inspiration. They borrowed practices that were already well established for server-side architecture. And at that moment, all the popular server-side frameworks involved some sort of implementation of the classic MVC model (also known as MV* because of its variations).

When React.js was first introduced as a rendering library, many developers mocked it because they perceived its way of dealing with HTML in JavaScript as counter-intuitive. But they overlooked the most important contribution that React brought on the table — Component Based Architecture.

React did not invent components, but it did take this idea one step further.

This major breakthrough in architecture was overlooked even by Facebook, when they advertised React as the “V in the MVC.”

On a side note, I still have nightmares after reviewing a codebase which had both Angular 1.x and React working together.

2015 brought us a major shift in mindset — from the familiar MVC pattern to the Unidirectional Architectures and Data Flows derived from Flux and Functional Reactive Programming, supported by tools like Redux or RxJS.

So where did it all go wrong for MVC?

MVC is still probably the best way to deal with the server side. Frameworks like Rails and Django are a pleasure to work with.

The problems stem from the fact that the principles and separations that MVC introduced on the server aren’t the same as on the client.

Controller-View Coupling

Below is a diagram of how the View and the Controller are interacting on the server. There are only two touch points between them, both crossing the boundary between the client and the server.

When you move to MVC on the client, there’s a problem. Controllers resemble what we call “code-behind.” The Controller is highly dependent on the View. In most framework implementations, it’s even created by the View (as is the case with, for example, ng-controller in Angular).

Additionally, when you think of the Single Responsibility Principle, this is clearly breaking the rules. The client controller code is dealing with both event handling and business logic, at a certain level.

Fat Models

Think a bit about the kind of data you store in a Model on the client side.

On one hand, you have data like users and products, which represent your Application State. On the other hand, you need to store the UI State — things like showTab or selectedValue.

Similar to the Controller, the Model is breaking the Single Responsibility Principle, because you don’t have a separate way of managing UI State and Application State.

So where do components fit into this model?

Components are: Views + Event Handling+ UI State.

The diagram below shows how you actually split the original MVC model to obtain the components. What’s left above the line is exactly what Flux is trying to solve: managing Application State and Business Logic.

With the popularity of React and component-based architecture, we saw the rise of unidirectional architectures for managing application state.

One of the reasons these two go so well together so well is that they cover the classic MVC approach entirely. They also provide a much better separation of concerns when it comes to building front-end architectures.

But this is no longer a React story. If you look at Angular 2, you’ll see the exact same pattern being applied, even though you have different options for managing application state like ngrx/store.

There wasn’t really anything MVC could have done better on the client. It was doomed to fail from the beginning. We just needed time to see this. Through this five-year process, front-end architecture evolved into what it is today. And when you think about it, five years isn’t such a long time for best practices to emerge.

MVC was necessary in the beginning because our front end applications were getting bigger and more complex, and we didn’t know how to structure them. I think it served its purpose, while also providing a good lesson about taking a good practice from one context (the server) and applying it to another (the client).

So what does the future hold?

I don’t think that we will come back to the classic MVC architecture anytime soon for our front end apps.

As more and more developers start to see the advantages of components and unidirectional architectures, the focus will be on building better tools and libraries that go down that path.

Will this kind of architecture be the best solution five years from now? There’s a good chance of that happening, but then again, nothing is certain.

Five years ago, no one could have predicted how we would end up writing apps today. So I don’t think that it’s safe to place the bets for the future now.

That’s about it! I hope you enjoyed reading this. I welcome your feedback below.

If you liked the article, click on the green heart below and I will know my efforts are not in vain.