API name change ideas for Infusion 1.0

[Colin Clark]

Aaron,

On 31-Mar-09, at 1:51 PM, Aaron Brown wrote:
> ModelUpdateController ?
>
> How's that for a CRUD/REST/Web2.0 highlight reel?  Still, that might  
> not
> be all bad, since the terms would convey some useful meaning to the
> developers.


Controller is definitely a well-recognized term, but I wonder if it's  
actually a bit misleading here. Here's my rationale; tell me what you  
think:

In traditional MVC frameworks, Controllers tend to be the  
responsibility of the application developer. Most frameworks offer a  
set of base classes that you extend from and then define all of the  
"glue" code for handling events and mediating between the model and  
the view.

In Infusion, this role is largely provided by the framework.  
Controllers tend to be the least reusable and defined portion of the  
MVC architecture, so we've tried to emphasize techniques that focus on  
the Model and the View layers. Events provide the "wiring" and the flow.

So, in a general sense, this thing is a controller: it is concerned  
with the events and managing the model. But it's unlike the any  
traditional definition of a Controller in MVC frameworks like Rails or  
SpringMVC or Cake. It is framework-provided code that is highly event- 
oriented, encouraging you to define your logic in small, independent  
listeners rather than in large objects that inherit from base classes.

So, given this definition, is the name Controller confusing here? Am I  
even making sense? :)

Colin

---
Colin Clark
Technical Lead, Fluid Project
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
http://fluidproject.org