[mariodiana]

I'm completely on board with you when it comes to things like the serialization ("web service/DB") that you brought up, but I wasn't talking about that. I was specifically talking about view controllers managing table views.

If we're talking about table views and controllers, I'm not sure how to factor out the delegate and datasource in a convenient way. The delegate, in many cases, will need to know information contained by the datasource (the number of objects in a table view or table view's section, for instance).

How do you suggest it gets this information? Should it have a direct channel to the datasource? Should the controller act as an intermediary? Should it have some indirect channel to the information -- blocks or notifications or wired up in some kind of delegate relationship with the datasource? I haven't been able to find a good answer.

I actually fancy myself a bit of a nut when it comes to partitioning out my code into different objects, because I can't stand the mental overhead when one class does too many things. But I have come up with no solution that satisfies me when it comes to view controllers, because it seems like a lot of plumbing needs to be put in place. What I do know is that Apple itself, as well as several good sources on coding for Cocoa and Cocoa-Touch make extensive use of categories. I still think they can be put to good use in the situation I describe, but I'm open to alternatives.