Concept Shadowing and Capture in MVC and its Successors

In a previous post, I noted that Apple's definition of MVC does not actually match the original definition, that it is more like Taligent's Model View Presenter (MVP) or what I like to to call Model Widget Controller. Matt Gallagher's look at Model-View-Controller in Cocoa makes a very similar point.

So who cares? After all, a rose by any other name is just as thorny, and the question of how the 500 pound gorilla gets to name things is also moot: however it damn well pleases.

The problem with using the same name is shadowing: since the names are the same, accessing the original definition is now hard. Again, this wouldn't really be a problem if it weren't for the fact that the old MVC solved exactly the kinds of problems that plague the new MVC. .

However, having to say "the problems of MVC are solved by MVC" is less than ideal, because, well, you sound a bit like a lunatic. And that is a problem, because it means that MVC is not considered when trying to solve the problems of MVP/MVC. And that, in turns, is a shame because it solves them quite nicely, IMHO much nicer than a lot of the other suggested patterns.

It turns out that MVC is, just like Algol an improvement on most of its successors.