PHP: Aggregate Model Classes or Uber Model Classes?
- by sunwukung
In many of the discussions regarding the M in MVC, (sidestepping ORM controversies for a moment), I commonly see Model classes described as object representations of table data (be that an Active Record, Table Gateway, Row Gateway or Domain Model/Mapper). Martin Fowler warns against the development of an anemic domain model, i.e. a class that is nothing more than a wrapper for CRUD functionality.
I've been working on an MVC application for a couple of months now.
The DBAL in the application I'm working on started out simple (on account of my understanding - oh the benefits of hindsight), and is organised so that Controllers invoke Business Logic classes, that in turn access the database via DAO/Transaction Scripts pertinent to the task at hand. There are a few "Entity" classes that aggregate these DAO objects to provide a convenient CRUD wrapper, but also embody some of the "behaviour" of that Domain concept (for example, a user - since it's easy to isolate).
Taking a look at some of the code, and thinking along refactoring some of the code into a Rich Domain Model, it occurred to me that were I to try and wrap the CRUD routines and behaviour of say, a Company into a single "Model" class, that would be a sizeable class.
So, my question is this: do Models represent domain objects, business logic, service layers, all of the above combined? How do you go about defining the responsibilities for these components?
