4 ms·

I generally accept the point made in the article, but what should I use in place of "Controller"? If using MVC I generally call it "ApplicationController" or "S

I generally accept the point made in the article, but what should I use in place of "Controller"? If using MVC I generally call it "ApplicationController" or "SimpleController". Should it be "Application", "ApplicationControl"...?

lallysingh 15y ago
what do the controllers actually do? Synchronize state? Verify that constraints are met?
- dasil003 15y ago
  I believe the OA's intended question is what are the controllers? Well, what are they? Yes, I know they control things, but what is the actual thing that they are?
- philbarr 15y ago
  You're suggesting I call them "StateSynchronizer" or "ConstraintVerifier"?
  - lallysingh 15y ago
    No, I suggest you name it after what it actually does. "Controller" is a role that's only defined in terms of what it interacts with. It's essentially a declaration of rank with other types; it doesn't say anything about what functionality the class provides. If I'm looking at the components of the software, and I want some code to do X, or wonder what a class Y does, what does "Controller" tell me? If you're doing constraint verification (for example), my preference is to have a container (e.g. vector<>) of Constraint and just run find_if() to see when Constraint::Valid(environment) returns false. Then it's a class called ConstraintVerificationUtil and it has a single static method: VerifyList.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - philbarr 15y ago
      "Controller" says to me that it's the where all the events are dealt with, so I can have one single place where events are handled. As for "ConstraintVerificationUtil", I personally feel that things that end in -Util are definitely worse than things that end in -er. Maybe that is just personal preference.
- davvid 15y ago
  Arcade games are a good analogy for MVC. The controller is the joystick, buttons, etc. The view is the CRT screen. The model represents the game state.
gruseom 15y ago
From the OP: "The fact that every single MVC implementation in the world has had a different role for Controller ought to tell us something about how well that idea fit." We were just discussing this yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036153. A favorite principle: when you can't find a good name for something, it's often a sign that the concept you're trying to name isn't appropriate.
- philbarr 15y ago
  What I still don't understand is, what would I put in place of the Controller? Events are raised by the user, these are all fired off and I want to handle them in the same place in the same way. I certainly don't want event handling code all over the application just because this means I can then have noun-only classes?

lallysingh 15y ago

what do the controllers actually do? Synchronize state? Verify that constraints are met?

dasil003 15y ago
I believe the OA's intended question is what are the controllers? Well, what are they? Yes, I know they control things, but what is the actual thing that they are?
philbarr 15y ago
You're suggesting I call them "StateSynchronizer" or "ConstraintVerifier"?
- lallysingh 15y ago
  No, I suggest you name it after what it actually does. "Controller" is a role that's only defined in terms of what it interacts with. It's essentially a declaration of rank with other types; it doesn't say anything about what functionality the class provides. If I'm looking at the components of the software, and I want some code to do X, or wonder what a class Y does, what does "Controller" tell me? If you're doing constraint verification (for example), my preference is to have a container (e.g. vector<>) of Constraint and just run find_if() to see when Constraint::Valid(environment) returns false. Then it's a class called ConstraintVerificationUtil and it has a single static method: VerifyList.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - philbarr 15y ago
    "Controller" says to me that it's the where all the events are dealt with, so I can have one single place where events are handled. As for "ConstraintVerificationUtil", I personally feel that things that end in -Util are definitely worse than things that end in -er. Maybe that is just personal preference.
davvid 15y ago
Arcade games are a good analogy for MVC. The controller is the joystick, buttons, etc. The view is the CRT screen. The model represents the game state.

gruseom 15y ago

From the OP: "The fact that every single MVC implementation in the world has had a different role for Controller ought to tell us something about how well that idea fit." We were just discussing this yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036153. A favorite principle: when you can't find a good name for something, it's often a sign that the concept you're trying to name isn't appropriate.

philbarr 15y ago
What I still don't understand is, what would I put in place of the Controller? Events are raised by the user, these are all fired off and I want to handle them in the same place in the same way. I certainly don't want event handling code all over the application just because this means I can then have noun-only classes?