58 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
58 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
+++
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date = "2008-08-17"
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title = "Skinny Controllers and Overweight Models"
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tags = ["Blog", "Ruby", "Rails", "controllers", "models"]
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slug = "skinny-controllers-and-overweight-models"
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+++
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All Rails developers know the slogan "Skinny Controllers, Fat Models" and I heartily agree with it. Every conference you go to, you hear it. But there's a problem! My Fat models got overweight!
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What happened? By stuffing all applications logic in the Models, they become fat, very fat. Although this is supposed to be a good thing, I don't like it. My models get so fat that it takes me forever to scroll through it and find the method I'm working on. There must be a better way!
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Well, yes there is: create modules! Normally you'd write a module to reuse your code in different places, but there's no rule that says you may not use a module only once.
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So, I package all related code (e.g. Authentication, state management, managing associated objects, etc) into different modules and place them in the /lib directory. Let's say you have a a bunch of methods to handle keep a counter on your User model
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``` ruby
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class User < ActiveRecord::Base
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attr_accessor :counter
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def up
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counter += 1
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end
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def down
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counter -= 1
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end
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def reset
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counter = 0
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end
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end
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```
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You could create a new file lib/counter.rb and include that module in your User model.
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``` ruby
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class User < ActiveRecord::Base
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attr_accessor :counter
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include Counter
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end
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module Counter
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def up
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counter += 1
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end
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def down
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counter -= 1
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end
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def reset
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counter = 0
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end
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end
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```
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As you can see, this keeps your fat User model clean and makes it easier for you to find code that applies to a certain function.
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