Should You Use Shared Models or Separate Sets of Models?

In the past, I’ve worked on software projects where there were many model classes with very similar properties. I often questioned the necessity of having multiple models that appeared almost identical, as this approach seemed to introduce code duplication and unnecessary complexity. On the other hand, I’ve also contributed to projects where a few large, multipurpose model classes were used. These projects often suffered from inflexibility and the potential for widespread issues whenever modifications were required, as changes to one model could impact multiple components. In software development, the principle of ‘separation of concerns‘ is important for creating maintainable and scalable applications. Personally, I’ve come to favor using separate models to adhere to this principle. In this post, I’ll discuss the using shared versus separate models through a recent project example—a Blazor web application I worked on for building chatbots.