CHAPTER 14 ■ MVC ARCHITECTURE^213Just the Facts
The MVC pattern is a design pattern that separates an application into three parts: the model,
the view, and the controller. MVC is primarily designed to help with web application develop-
ment workflow and allow teams to work together more efficiently by defining specific roles.
These roles are developer, designer, and integrator. Developers are responsible for the model.
Designers are responsible for the look and feel of the site. Integrators are in charge of putting it
all together.
Most MVC frameworks follow similar concepts, providing classes for controllers and methods
for actions. Views are templates, and can be created in plain PHP or a template language like
Smarty.
There are a lot of considerations to bear in mind when choosing which framework is right
for your project. The five key points are architecture, documentation, community, support,
and flexibility.
The introduction to MVC in this chapter provides a basis for the next chapters, which
discuss the specific implementation of the Zend Framework.McArthur_819-9C14.fm Page 213 Thursday, February 28, 2008 7:44 AM