Is the MVC-pattern a pure presentation-tier patter

Question

Kind of a special question today :)

I just had a test at my technical university where I was told that I am wrong.

So I like to know from you folks(I believe you more than my teachers):

Is the MVC-pattern implemented at the presentation-layer only? Or is the Model-part of the pattern in the Business/DataAccess-layer implemented.

My teacher said, it's not possible that a pattern can span more than one tier. But I think it's an an enterprise-architecture-pattern and therefore can span multiple tiers.

How wrong am I? :)

Answer 1

I would think MVC does go deeper than presentation tier for the simple reason that supplying the model does require other tiers to do "something".

Besides if we think of model as some representation of Domain concepts (see DDD) - then we are already talking about going outside of Presentation tier.

Answer 2

You're wrong... for the class. In class, what teacher/book says goes.

Outside class, I agree with you 100%.

Answer 3

Your teacher is right, the "model" merely represents data that is to be presented. For example, the data that makes up a web page.

The data itself will ultimately come from the business layer, but the model should be restricted to the presentation layer. It's the model of your presentation.

For example, you might retrieve data as datasets, and use the datasets to build page-specific models.