What is an appropriate MVC-based OOP design for my case?

Question

Suppose the following baseline design: I have a class CarElement which holds properties and methods related to both visual representation and data model/logic representation of a car:

class carElement
{

    // UI related properties and methods:
    public Size DrawSize { get; set; }
    public Point Location { get; set; }

    public void Draw()
    {
        // do something...
    }

    // data model / logic related properties and methods:
    public double weight { get; set; }
    public string manufacturer { get; set; }

    public double CalculatePrice()
    {
        // do something...
        return 0;
    }
}

The usage of this class is as follows: Multiple instances of carElement are drawn to some canvas. Clicking each drawn car shows the properties of that car in a property grid by using propertygrid.SelectedObject = InstanceOfcarElement .

In my opinion, this design is flawed because data model and visual representation are not separated in the class design. I would like to improve the design towards MVC and I am seeking advice on good design decisions.

My current take on this would be to separate above class carElement into something like the following two classes.

class carUIElement // organizes visual representation of a car
{
    public Size DrawSize { get; set; }
    public Point Location { get; set; }

    private carDataElement linkedCarDataElement;

    public void Draw()
    {
        // do something...
    }

}

class carDataElement // organizes data model organization of a car
{   

    public double weight { get; set; }
    public string manufacturer { get; set; }

    private carUIElement linkedCarUIElement;

    public double CalculatePrice()
    {
        // do something...
        return 0;
    }
}

With that approach, the following are unclear to me:

• carUIElement should know the carDataElement it is linked to, and vice versa. Are there better design approaches to this than the simple linking in above Code?
• How would I best show both the UI and data model properties on the property Grid, when the drawn UIElement is clicked?

Is the overall approach viable? What about the above open points? I am missing the experience to judge that, so I would be grateful for your comments. Thank you.

Answer 1

Well while we should always be careful not to over intellectualize stuff, after all we as programmers are more masons than artist and even if Notre Dame church is just a construction and not art, no always will be required exorbitant decoration and acoustic chambers, suppose the next version will be as grand as the previous :)

What do i mean? I propose pragmatism with MVC, so if and if in early infancy of the program, it can have the ui model, also sometimes called the data transfer object, be identical to the logical model, that is not in itself an anti-pattern imo. Obviously once bulding ui, we begin to have released instances with presumed constructs and when it starts to limit development of the product, how it is presented, typically when you need more info than is relevant to ui, stored on the entity, then you can lock the interface by inventing the DTO model objects and party on with the initial model. So I get where you're going with what's behind why you might want to separate it.

Then again often we have web frontends, especially with mvc and then mostly it will be no longer a databound view, but a MVVM thingy like like Angular, React, Vue or even Blazor if for some reason you might want that, or the tradition Razor pages, really? in new development?? I try not to put anything in the DTO classes that would be lost if only the serialized JSON version is available to your view engine. So that when modernization happens, your controller/ api doesn't have to principally change.

So seperate classes for seperate concerns an no logic in data access or transfer classes, my suggestion would be something along the lines below, but to end up with your questions:

a) Linking with a navigation property in your data model makes sense if you use it to load for instance using entity framework, it is required. In Your UI type the frequency is key, typically we like to push all data into the points so that they need nothing else to perform, but this makes sense if the class is being serialized and deserialized and you use a tool like AutoMapper to move to and from, if You're in a windows client like WPF hey your model is already on the client and already loaded up for MVVM, you're in such a much better place that you may not honestly care for front-end types, until they need to vary.

b) the question is do you always want to show both or can you hide the cardata element until they ask for it, that would dictate the choice to either let a DTO include the data from the relation or just the foreign key and have an extra lookup method available imo.

So suggestion brief:

/// <summary>
/// Drawing is a separate concern of the application
/// </summary>
class DrawManager
{
    public void DrawCar(CarBase car) { }
}

/// <summary>
/// So is calculating prices
/// </summary>
class PriceManager
{
    decimal CalculateCarPrice(CarBase car) { throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}

/// <summary>
/// The 2 classes share properties, invent a base class to abide by the DRY principle
/// </summary>
class CarBase
{
    public Size DrawSize { get; set; }
    public Point Location { get; set; }
}

/// <summary>
/// Now they are identical
/// </summary>
class carElement : CarBase
{
    carDataElement CarData { get; set; }
}

/// <summary>
/// Now they are identical
/// </summary>
class carUIElement : CarBase
{
    carDataElement linkedCarDataElement;
}

/// <summary>
/// The data about a car, in RDBMS typically normalized into a seperate entity like you have,
/// does UI really need any of them? Is it always needed when other members are accessed? 
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// we could choose to have the data model have a navigation property and then let the ui member not have it and give it a method to ackquire it,
/// but then that shouldn't get done to early and well if it always needs it, it is not yet a seperate datatype justification for the ui aspect
/// </remarks>
class carDataElement
{
    public double weight { get; set; }
    public string manufacturer { get; set; }
}