| He still didn't clear up the conceptual understanding of "model" very well. The Data Model. Just the data. - pure Value Objects, classes which are little more than wrappers to data, which can be assembled in more complex structures for presentation by a view. The Domain Model. A representation of the data, the actors, and the processes. The objects are often a mix of pure value objects, object managers, actors that carry out actions on multiple data items, and facades/processes that coordinate several actors, maintain their own state (internal model/statemachine or externally in other objects). The "Framework Supported" Model (for want of a better term). This is where the data model has some aspects of the domain model, but a number of pieces are defined outside of the "model" and in a framework. Bits that are often separated are things like: validation, keeping track of sessions (actor state), collecting multiple models together for presentation to a view (maybe typically done in a facade), dependency injection, lazy loading, etc. Personally, if a framework has clean and clear support for things that I'd usually put in a Domain Model, I'm probably going to use it. Especially for input validation!! They usually end up in the "controller" for lack of a better place to put them. However, sometimes it makes sense to pull it into your model... especially where you may have multiple controllers/processes acting on the same data - and leaving it to the framework controller is going to be an issue. I'm not a fan of "views" pushing data back to the models without the controller... unless you're doing your validation and access controls, etc. in the domain model then it's a slippery slope. That said... if you are tracking state in the model, then the view updating state? That sounds OK... there are no hard and fast rules! |