[bioneuralnet]

I cannot help but wonder if the over-enthusiasm for microservices these past few years is a direct result of the over-enthusiasm for "MVC" these past 10 years or so (since Rails).

MVC outlines very clearly the areas of responsibility for the framework. But many of the popular MVC frameworks take it a step further, declaring that MVC should be the primary dividing lines for your app code and business logic, with little thought given to separation along functional/domain lines. (Or in DHH's words, "The framework is the application!")

So is it any wonder that 10 years later, the industry is freaking out because our nice, clean MVC apps became business logic casseroles? Microservices can help with that, just like MVC can help with the PHP spaghetti code that came before. But none of those things can substitute for basic design principles.

I wonder how things would be different if 10 years ago, instead of app/models, app/views, and app/controllers, Rails had promoted app/auth, app/billing, app/spline_reticulation, etc. Might such a simple thing have pushed us in a better direction, leaving microservices to the 10% of apps that really need them? Or would we all have followed that pattern to illogical extremes as well?