Question

I’ve the following (theoretical architecture):

• a view layer: a web site which show pages in Php
• a business logic layer divided in two parts: one communicates with the view layer , the other consists of a java project
• a data access layer which let the “two” business layer to communicate with two databases

The question is: can this be considered a MVC pattern?

Answer 1

No , MVC and VBD are not the same. This not classical MVC design pattern nor anything related to MVC. This is what newbies make, when they are told about “separation of concerns” for first time.

1. There is no controller nor anything remotely resembling a controller-like structure. Usually, the presentation layer is made up from both view and controller instances. But looks like the part, which is responsible for interaction, is missing. Basically, no separation between V and C.

2. For some strange reason the domain objects (ones, that contains business logic) on the PHP side have direct access to domain object on Java side. This means that they are interacting directly though services.

3. In MVC design pattern data access logic is part of model layer ( in form of data mapper or transaction scripts ). In this the seem to be separated.

4. There is direct two-way interaction between domain objects and presentation layer, which means, that presentation layer contains some of domain logic.

5. You have “JavaScript API” in domain objects. That’s part of presentation logic.

Bottom line: the whole thing is a mess.