I've been playing with Cocoa development, and I've been having a hard time figuring out the One True Way to handle Nested Views and Controllers and cleanly compose them all together.

The below image is what we're attempting to create.

Nested View is defined in a separate xib file, and backed by NVNestedViewOneView : NSView.

The xib file also includes a reference to NVNestedViewOneController with the controller referencing the view and vice versa.

You'd think that this would all work, but sadly our nested view doesn't actually *render*.

Stay tuned as you get to follow along with my idiocy!  Woo!

You can get the code at : https://github.com/ecoffey/NestedView

I plan on ranting here a bit more, so I figure I might try and lay out how I think about software design and development.

A good friend of mine introduced me to these terms: Mechanics vs Intent.

Mechanics are the how of your software.  It's the OS, Language, Framework, Patterns, etc that you use to write your code.  You have to have mechanics, since at some point you have to give the computer something to execute.

Intent is the why of your software.  Intent is why your particular piece of software exists.  The itch it scratches if you will.  To me this is also where the Domain concerns live.

So really I like to think as Software Development as a constant struggle between Mechanics and Intent.  The Intent is the reason for being, but you need the Mechanics to get your work done, and sometimes one can muddle the other: "How do I even express this in code!" vs "How confusing could you have made division!"