I'd say the model is a black box for business data and logic yes. So I'd consider the M and O from the article to be the model - encapsulated data + behaviour.

I'd say the model is a black box for business data and logic yes. So I'd consider the M and O from the article to be the model - encapsulated data + behaviour. IMO the E part of the article maps to the controller layer (in the web version of MVC). I think there are two areas of confusion on the topic: 1. Web MVC isn't the same as the traditional MVC pattern as seen in apps and described in patterns literature. In the web version all communication between model and view is mediated through the controller layer and there is no direct control between them) - many web developers are only aware of this variant. 2. Rails popularised web MVC and used ActiveRecord which meant that models were essentially table wrappers and this pushed business object logic into the controller. For me the next step after MVC is PAC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentation%E2%80%93abstraction%E2%80%93control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentation%E2%80%93abstractio... (which I think is pretty much the same thing as HMVC). Adding that extra dimension of multiple self-contained triads keeps the controller layer from becoming a single unwieldy mess of spaghetti spread across the whole web layer. (Ironically I suppose it does introduce a concept of events binding them which may bring it full circle to some ideas in the article.)