What role does the architectural pattern MVC play in software development?

The MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern divides an application into three components:

• Model — responsible for data and business logic. It manages the application's state and interacts with the database.
• View — responsible for displaying data to the user. It is the user interface with which the user interacts.
• Controller — handles user input, interacts with the model, and updates the view.

This separation helps to:

• Improve code structure and ease maintenance.
• Develop and test components independently.
• Facilitate reuse and scaling.

For example, in a Java web application, the controller receives an HTTP request, calls model methods to process data, and then passes the result to the view for display.