### **MVC Is Killing You** ### The biggest roadblock towards developers achieving good design is a simple acronym: M-V-C. Models, views, and controllers have dominated web framework thinking for years, in part because of the popularity of Ruby on Rails. However, ask a developer to define "model". Usually, you'll hear a few mutters and the word "database". Supposedly, the model is the database. It's where all your database stuff goes, whatever that means. But, as you quickly learn, your application needs a lot more logic than just a simple database access class. It needs to do validation, call external services, send e-mails, and more. > ### **What Is A Model?** ### > > The word "model" has become so ambiguous that it has no meaning. By developing with a more specific vocabulary, it will be easier to separate our application into smaller, cleaner classes with a clearly defined responsiblity. > So, what is the solution to this dilemma? Many developers start packing logic into their controllers. Once the controllers get large enough, they need to re-use business logic that is in other controllers. Instead of extracting the logic into another class, most developers mistakenly assume they need to call controllers from within other controllers. This pattern is typically called "HMVC". Unfortunately, this pattern often indicates poor application design, and controllers that are much too complicated. >### **HMVC (Usually) Indicates Poor Design** ### > > Feel the need to call controllers from other controllers? This is often indicative of poor application design and too much business logic in your controllers. Extract the logic into a third class that can be injected into any controller. > There is a better way to structure applications. We need to wash our minds clean of all we have been taught about models. In fact, let's just delete the *model* directory and start fresh!