Chapter 8. Application Patterns

Thus far we have spent a great deal of time examining patterns that are used to solve local problems, that is; problems that span only a handful of classes and not the whole application. These patterns have been narrow in scope. They frequently only relate to two or three classes and might be used but a single time in any given application. As you can imagine there are also larger scale patterns that are applicable to the application as a whole. You might think of "toolbar" as a general pattern that is used in many places in an application. What's more, it is a pattern that is used in a great number of applications to give them a similar look and feel. Patterns can help guide how the whole application is assembled.

In this chapter we're going to look at a family of patterns which I've taken to calling the MV* family. This family includes MVC, MVVM, MVP, and even PAC. Just like their names, the patterns themselves are pretty...