What is the MVC pattern

There are many different approaches to creating an API architecture, and the right way to do it depends on the specific needs of your application and the programming language you are using. In my experience, following best practices for structuring an API can make it easier to develop, maintain, and modify your API over time.

In my opinion this is important because, following best practices for API design can also make it easier for new developers to get up to speed and contribute to the project. By adhering to established patterns and conventions, developers can more easily understand the architecture of the application and how their code fits into the bigger picture. This helps to reduce the learning curve and enables developers to be more productive from the start.

One of the first languages I used to create APIs was Ruby and the Ruby on Rails framework. One of the benefits of using Rails is that it is a full-stack framework, which means you can build both the front-end and back-end of your application within a single application. Rails uses the MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern, which separates the responsibilities of different parts of the application into distinct components.

What is MVC

The MODEL represents the business logic of the application and is responsible for storing and manipulating data, as well as enforcing rules and constraints on the data. The VIEW is the presentation layer that the client sees, typically just the HTML that is displayed to the end user. The CONTROLLER handles the logic of connecting the model and view, and is responsible for processing user input, updating the model as needed, and selecting the appropriate view to display the updated data.

In addition to the MVC components, routers also play an important role in an API built with this pattern. A router routes incoming requests to the appropriate controller, which performs its logic and interacts with the model to retrieve data from the database. The data is then passed to the view, which is sent back to the user.

Modern applications

In modern software development, it is common for applications to adopt variations of the MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern. This is often due to the increasing popularity of microservices architectures, which involve breaking down large applications into smaller, independent components that can be developed and managed by separate teams.

the variation of MVC is the MC (Model-Controller) pattern, in which the view (the presentation layer of the application) is hosted separately and communicates with the back-end of the application through an external API. This allows the front-end and back-end of the application to be developed and maintained independently, making it easier to make changes and add new features.

In the MC pattern, the API (Application Programming Interface) acts as the controller and handles the logic of connecting the model (which represents the business logic of the application) to the view. When a request is made to the API, it routes the request to the appropriate controller, which interacts with the appropriate model to retrieve data from the database. The controller can also choose to communicate with other models or external APIs to gather additional data, if needed. Once all of the necessary data has been collected, the controller returns it to the view in the form of JSON, XML, or another data format.