MVC tutorial that doesn't rely on a framework? [closed]

Question

I want to learn MVC "architecture pattern" but I don't want to jump into a framework like Rails or Django just yet. I want to understand the concept first and write some simple code in my currently familiar environment, which happens to be PHP/HTML/CSS/MySQL. I don't necessarily need a tutorial that is based on PHP, as I do understand a lot of different languages. And I don't want to have to install any frameworks or APIs or libraries. I just want to learn how to think in MVC and apply it to my projects. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Almost every framework does MVC differently, so you might end up getting even more confused. The general principles of MVC are very simple: "Model is state; view reacts to model; controller reacts to view; controller changes model". The model, view and controller are concepts - they are whatever you feel them to be. Classes, bunches of classes, instances of classes with XML configuration files, you name it.

I actually think that about covers the basic principles. Without a framework, you'd not get much further. What matters is how a particular framework defines model, view and controller and their interactions.

Answer 2

MVC is basically just splitting up your code into a Model, which deals with the data, a View which displays the data, and a Controller which passes data from the Model to the View.

It's nothing you need an API or framework for, it's just a way of splitting up your code. The reason many frameworks use it is because it's a very simple concept, it works well for many things (it fits webpages perfectly), and is fairly flexible (for example, with Rails, you could do everything in your view, or model/controller, if you so-desired..)

A quick example in python, of an example MVC structured Python script. Not necessarily "best practices", but it works, and is fairly simple:

class Model:     def get_post(self, id):         # Would query database, perhaps         return {"title": "A test", "body": "An example.."}  class Controller:     def __init__(self):         self.model = Model()         self.view = View()      def main(self):         post = self.model.get_post(1)         self.view.display(post)  class View:     def display(self, item):         print "<h1>%(title)s</h1>\n%(body)s" % item  c = Controller() c.main()