BTW, one of my coworkers found a Sun article that covers similar ground, showing how to use the MVA pattern in a Swing app. They go into more depth in some places, but don’t push componentization of the Adapter quite as far: http://blogs.sun.com/JavaFundamentals/entry/java_se_application_design_with

private boolean bDontFire = false;
public synchronized void fire() {
  try {
    bDontFire = true;
    ....update model or view...
  } finally {
    bDontFire = false;
  }
}

private class MyListener implements Listener {
  public void onEvent() {
     if (bDontFire) return;
     ... deal with event...
  }
}

But even this can come unstuck when components fire events in a separate thread.