I'm basing this question on Fowler PoEAA. Given your familiarity with this text, aren't the ViewModels used in ASP.NET MVC the same as DTOs? Why or why not? Thank you.
5 Answers
Both serve the same purpose to model data coming to and from the backend.
View Models model data hitting the backend from a front end visual system (forms, user inputs, etc) and vice versa model data to be sent to the front end for the same purpose to fulfill some visual requirement.
Data Transfer Objects model data hitting the backend from some client system (background api's, data that still needs to be worked on, a clients background services, etc) and vice versa model data to be sent to the client system. Even though the client system may have visual elements, the DTO call itself is used for a non visual use case.
The technical differences between the two arise from the semantic and contextual meaning of the two as mentioned above, such as view models possibly having more behaviour.
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