Django MVC explanation

Django follows this MVC pattern closely enough that it can be called an MVC framework. Here’s roughly how the M, V, and C break down in Django:

• M, the data-access portion, is handled by Django’s database layer, which is described in this chapter.
• V, the portion that selects which data to display and how to display it, is handled by views and templates.
• C, the portion that delegates to a view depending on user input, is handled by the framework itself by following your URLconf and calling the appropriate Python function for the given URL.

Because the “C” is handled by the framework itself and most of the excitement in Django happens in models, templates and views, Django has been referred to as an MTV framework. In the MTV development pattern,

• M stands for “Model,” the data access layer. This layer contains anything and everything about the data: how to access it, how to validate it, which behaviors it has, and the relationships between the data.
• T stands for “Template,” the presentation layer. This layer contains presentation-related decisions: how something should be displayed on a Web page or other type of document.
• V stands for “View,” the business logic layer. This layer contains the logic that access the model and defers to the appropriate template(s). You can think of it as the bridge between models and templates.

If you’re familiar with other MVC Web-development frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails, you may consider Django views to be the “controllers” and Django templates to be the “views.” This is an unfortunate confusion brought about by differing interpretations of MVC. In Django’s interpretation of MVC, the “view” describes the data that gets presented to the user; it’s not necessarily just how the data looks, but which data is presented. In contrast, Ruby on Rails and similar frameworks suggest that the controller’s job includes deciding which data gets presented to the user, whereas the view is strictly how the data looks, not which data is presented.
Neither interpretation is more “correct” than the other. The important thing is to understand the underlying concepts.

References

• http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/chapter05.html#the-mtv-or-mvc-development-pattern
• http://reinout.vanrees.org/weblog/2011/12/13/django-mvc-explanation.html
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6621653/django-vs-model-view-controller