Jeff, I agree that the old-style validation methods are better when you do
not need to combine options. I'm +1 for keeping them around.
But the new dynamic finders are just as good as before:
Product.find_by title: "iPad Mini"
is just as well as:
Product.find_by_title "iPad Mini".
On Friday, November 2, 2012 4:22:38 PM UTC+1, Jeff Cohen wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I'm becoming concerned with the apparent loss of English-like DSL in
> Rails. When I first came to Rails as an experienced C++/C#/.NET engineer,
> I was thrilled to write code that felt more like English.
>
> Specifically, the belongs_to and has_many methods introduced me to a
> mental model of coding that expanded my mind, and wielded the power of the
> Ruby language in a way that no other framework that I had ever seen.
>
> Rails 3 brought a slow death to another area of wonderful DSL-ness:
> validations. Instead of this:
>
> validates_presence_of :title
>
> we're now supposed to use the generic form:
>
> validates :title, :presence => true
>
> which to me is uglier and doesn't read nearly as well. I understand the
> other argument: By using a generic #validates method, it brings apparent
> consistency to all of the other validation lines, and lets you combine
> options, etc. But I don't like it because it sacrifices a higher cause,
> which is code intention and readability.
>
> I still use the old validates_presence_of and will continue to until it's
> forcibly removed.
>
> Maybe most people like the new validates method, so I didn't want to
> complain. But now I see that dynamic finders are going away too! As
> someone who spends most of my time helping newcomers to Rails, I think this
> is a bad decision.
>
> There are few things nicer than learning that I can find my data with
> methods like:
>
> Product.find_by_title("iPad Mini")
> Product.find_all_by_rating(4)
>
> My understanding is that in Rails 4, these go away! Replaced by a more
> generic version, that takes a hash for everything instead.
>
> We are slowly replacing our English-like DSL with generic methods that
> mean nothing. Meaning has been moved into an ugly hash instead.
>
> What next? Would you put up with:
>
> class Category < ActiveRecord::Base
>
> associated_to :product, :ordinality => :many
>
> end
>
> I hope not!
>
> So if maybe it's too late to save the validation methods, but I hope it's
> not too late to save dynamic finders.
>
> Who's with me? :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff
>
>
>
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