The Rails Way Jamis Buck, Michael Koziarski

Don’t forget to look at The Rails Way blog.

Move logic into your model. This lets you break functionality into more granular components and makes testing easier. Keep your controllers skinny. Jamis blogged about this principle here.

Use before filters to setup state before your controller runs. Use before_create in your models.

ActiveSupport helps you make your code intention revealing. Ruby code can be self documenting.

has_many, belong_to makes your code powerful easy to use, but many users don’t use the power of the associations.

Document.find_all_by_user_id(@john.id)

vs

@john.documents # this one hits the db once and then stores the objects in memory.  After the call you don't have to keep hitting the db.
</pre>


You can do the same with

 @john.documents.find(:all, :conditions => ....
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try this:

@cool.documents.find_by_user_id(@john.id)
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then define it as a method:

@cool.documents_authored_by(@john.id)
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just be sure to not duplicate the method in both the tags and authors models that is difficult to maintain.
You might prefer:

@john.documents.tagged_with(@cool)
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Don't use the '!!' idiom.  What you are doing is saying not not.

def account_code?
  !!@account_code.nil? # will return false if account_code nil
end
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this is better

def account_code?
  @account_code ? true : false
end
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or you can do this

# make sure to document true because... false because...
def account_code?
  if @account_code
    true
  else
    false
  end
end
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I'm tired of typing code.  I'll post a link to the slides when they get them up.

Simplify 'New' for creating objects with associations by creating a method in your model called build with associations that does that work for you instead of creating a bunch of objects and then associating them in the controller

Simplify your routes.  If you are pointing to the same controller all the time use with_options

you can make better urls like this

def to_param
  "#{id}-#{name}"
end

find(params[:id])
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but you have to be careful in your controller to make sure that other methods work with params[:id]

returning new do |billable|
  billable.contract = Contract.new
end
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is the same as

billable = new
billable.contract = Contract.new
return billable
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but looks cool

How do you deal with validations when you have a lot of associations.  I have dealt with this and it sucks.  I have had to force the various objects to validate and then pull the errors into an error object then show the errors from that object.