Is it bad practice to create unique view controllers for different tabs that do essentially the same thing?

Question

Ok so basically I have a UITabBarController as my root view controller. I have three tabs that will all have UINavigationController objects nested in them, controlling three table views each.

Each mode will access the same database in the same way, but just sort by different variables. Very similar to the way the iPod app works - whether you narrow down your search by Artist or Genre, you end up at the same "detail view" (the song playing).

My question is, should I link all three tabs in Interface Builder to the same UINavigationController, but just populate the table depending on the selected tab? Or should I create completely independent objects for each tab, and copy and paste code?

The first way seems more efficient and flexible, but the second seems like it will be a little more explicit and easy to read!

Thanks for any help :)

Answer 1

I think clearing the navigation controller stack on every tab switch (assuming it is not hidden when the non-uppermost navigation child is shown) would be much more resource-consuming than having all three/four UINavigationControllers available all the time (mostly for quick tab-switching).

Further, if the owning UINavigationController is the only object that retained (owns) the UIViewControllers on the stack, then you will also deallocate your UIViewControllers should you decide to reset the navigation stack (1-Nav scenario). Assuming of course they are not "statically" present inside a NIB.

TL;DR version

I'd use a separate UINavigationController for each tab, in a low memory-footprint app it will increase the visual performance of your tabs.