In an earlier article written for techPortal, Scaling Web Applications With HMVC, the Hierarchical-Model-View-Controller architecture was explored. Using an example web application called Gazouillement and the Kohana Framework, the article investigated how structuring code using an HMVC methodology can help overcome some common scalability challenges in complex software architectures. The article concluded by demonstrating the relative simplicity of horizontally scaling the HMVC Gazouillement example application, after analysis of the execution bottlenecks.
The previous article was intended to be a reintroduction to HMVC for the web application era. HMVC is not a new concept: it was originally referenced in a Java World article over ten years ago and based on an idea that dates back forty years. Todays rise in notoriety of HMVC might be due to the popularity it is enjoying in modern frameworks. Or it could be that the similarity in size and scope of modern web applications to their desktop cousins has given developers reason to revisit the HMVC architecture. Given the present interest in HMVC, this is a great time to explore the subject further and answer a few of the questions arising from the previous article.
