Programming Considerations for the Model-View-Controller

✨ Summary

This document, published in May 1979, is authored by Trygve Reenskaug. It presents the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, a groundbreaking concept in software design, especially pertinent to user interface development. The document explores the early ideas and implementation considerations for MVC in Smalltalk, emphasizing its separation of concerns into models (data), views (user interface), and controllers (input handling). The introduction of MVC was pivotal in advancing object-oriented design and programming practices.

The influence of this paper is extensive and longstanding. The MVC pattern has become a cornerstone in software engineering, widely adopted in multiple frameworks and languages beyond its original Smalltalk context, including Java, .NET, and web development frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Django. Numerous papers and books on software design explicitly cite this early work as foundational.

A few works that reference and expand on Reenskaug’s MVC pattern include:

1. Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., & Vlissides, J. (1994). Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. This widely acclaimed book discusses MVC in the context of design patterns.
2. Buschmann, F., et al. (1996). Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture: A System of Patterns. This book further explores patterns, with references to the MVC structure.
3. Krasner, G. E., & Pope, S. T. (1988). A Description of the Model-View-Controller User Interface Paradigm in the Smalltalk-80 System. This paper presents detailed discussions on MVC implementations and was influenced by Reenskaug’s initial ideas.
4. Rails Guides: Getting Started with Rails. Link. The MVC architecture underlies the Ruby on Rails framework, as described in their official documentation.

These citations indicate the pivotal role of Reenskaug’s publication in shaping modern software development through the MVC paradigm.