Appreciate this is a path well travelled probably.
What's the best way of to deal with gender.
i.e. a Person is either Male or Female (generally and fot my purposes I'll stick with that rule).
So is it best to go Person with an attribute gender, or, I guess it's best to do something like this - the rails way?
Person belongs_to: gender
Gender has_many: people
Sorry if this is such an obvious question just want to do it right.
Might just be me, but I've always thought of gender as an attribute of a person in your context.
I'm not sure where a gender model comes into all of this, but you may be thinking of something I'm not.
To populate from a static array or from AR… I had the same quandry and ended up doing it the ‘rails’ way as you describe below. Although as you said, it is such a static thing that might as well use a constant array. The other question is to store M/F in Person.gender or store an integer.
Since rails should be caching the model, I dont think it is a real big difference performance-wise either way. I think it probably comes down to your aesthetics, what feels right and what looks best to you.
Thanks chaps.
It's now got me thinking. This stuff is not as easy as it looks. Ive given up on gender when I realised that a name can belong to both genders!
In English my app is a baby name chooser
A baby can have many proposed names but only one surname.
A name can be of many types, forename / middlename etc
Any tips how to model this!
David Kahn wrote:
To populate from a static array or from AR.... I had the same quandry
According to the way I think, a model object is something you CURD (create, update, read, or delete). Unless you're God you're not going to be creating or deleting genders.
I'd go with a static enumeration (Male, Female or M, F or 0, 1). For the sake of the "simplest solution that could possibly work," I'd go with Male/Female. No added complexity in having to format the data for the view.
It's not just you.
bingo bob wrote:
Thanks chaps.
It's now got me thinking. This stuff is not as easy as it looks. Ive given up on gender when I realised that a name can belong to both genders!
In English my app is a baby name chooser
A baby can have many proposed names but only one surname.
A name can be of many types, forename / middlename etc
Any tips how to model this!
The name itself should have "name", "boys", and "girls" where boys and girls are booleans.
How many types? I only see two types, "forname", "middlename". Are you trying to build a baby name to put into a "shopping cart" of some sort?
How many types? I only see two types, "forname", "middlename". Are you trying to build a baby name to put into a "shopping cart" of some sort?
I'm trying to develop an app where the full proposed baby name is kind of built up by the user - i envisage some dragging and dropping to reorder the firstnames - several combinations of "(forname + middle(optional)) + surname" can be reordered to generate the final full name and yes, I can only think that forname and middle name will be necessary. Such a seemingly simple task but when I get to think about it the options for the model seem endless!
Also, I don't want to end up in ruby typing things like this.
name = Name.find_by_name("some_name") # seems ridiculous - too many names.
grrr, maybe like this.
Baby has_many :givennames
- gender, string - surname, string
GivenName belongs_to :baby
- value, string - position, integer
Are names generated by the user or do they see a list that *you* have entered into the assumed database?
So then I write stuff like
firstname = Baby.first.given_name.first fullname = firstname + " " + Baby.first.surname
Sorry that code was wrong, I guess it would be something like...
firstname = Baby.first.given_name.first.value fullname = firstname + " " + Baby.first.surname
Hi Pale Horse,
The names would be generated by the user, they are proposed new baby names. The surname of the baby is of course fixed but needs to be entered, it is that of the parents. Hope that makes sense.
Amazing how much there is to think about from a seemingly trivial job!
bb
bingo bob wrote:
The names would be generated by the user, they are proposed new baby names. The surname of the baby is of course fixed but needs to be entered, it is that of the parents. Hope that makes sense.
Amazing how much there is to think about from a seemingly trivial job!
Indeed, but I think you're overcomplicating the issue.
bb
So, a simple form with the following fields:
Forename, Surname (both stored as strings). *Two* check boxes to determine whether the name is for a male and/or female, and of course a save button.
Present this form only after a User has logged in.
Now, a ProposedNames table with the following columns:
user_id:integer forename:string midname:string surname:string male:tinyint female:tinyint
This allows Users to save their proposed names into a database for later retrieval.
You can then give the view permission to re-order and alter these names at any time, by displaying a list of proposed names to the User in a secure area.
No validation on the column names are necessary, realistically.
Unless I've misunderstood your request, I don't see any problems with this approach.
Horseman.
Thanks for this.
Great.
But you can have multiple middle names!
Annoying but true
Bb
bingo bob wrote:
Horseman.
Thanks for this.
Great.
But you can have multiple middle names!
An unlimited amount? In that case, you might consider storing the entered forenames and middles names into separate tables and creating a suggestion tool.
I recommend, taking a look at #75 Complex Forms Part 3 - RailsCasts for adding other fields dynamically.
An unlimited amount?
Well yes, I believe so. In the vast majority of cases people just have firstname surname, also firstname middlename surname. But in essence they could have 100 middle names; although it's a little unlikely I don't believe there are legal constraints here in the UK.
Pragmatically though - I think I'll go with a minor adaptation(s) of your first solution..
ProposedNames table with the following columns:
user_id :integer forename :string midname1 :string midname2 :string midname3 :string midname4 :string midname5 :string surname :string gender :string
Really appreciate your other points re how I might handle the form and logic. Got to love railscasts, I'd be nowhere without them, they are truly excellent.
bingo bob wrote:
An unlimited amount?
Well yes, I believe so. In the vast majority of cases people just have firstname surname, also firstname middlename surname. But in essence they could have 100 middle names; although it's a little unlikely I don't believe there are legal constraints here in the UK.
Pragmatically though - I think I'll go with a minor adaptation(s) of your first solution..
ProposedNames table with the following columns:
user_id :integer forename :string midname1 :string midname2 :string midname3 :string midname4 :string midname5 :string surname :string gender :string
Really appreciate your other points re how I might handle the form and logic. Got to love railscasts, I'd be nowhere without them, they are truly excellent.
I agree with your proposed structure. It would be my recommendation, but you did specify 'unlimited'.
It seems *pointless* for a human to have > 7 names.
Apologies for omitting the midname column from my original recommendation.
I realised that it's best to ignore the "one in a million" scenario, and do what works in 99.9% of cases.
bingo bob wrote:
I realised that it's best to ignore the "one in a million" scenario, and do what works in 99.9% of cases.
"All that is complex is not useful. All that is useful is simple."
As I said in my initial reply, you were overcomplicating it.
Now if we could just stop thinking that the world is composed solely of middle class white anglo saxon males and face the reality. Naming conventions in some cultures go well beyond forename plus surname. Those people also live in the UK.
I also note that you are omitting titles and suffixes such as "Queen Elizabeth II" who is also called "Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor". Or even "Hank Williams Jr" or "Hank WIlliams III" or "Sir Robert Geldof"
Some people have only one name which is neither a forename or a surname.
Lets ignore the artist formerly known a Prince for a moment 
To be honest I would go with
user_id :integer title :string forename :string midname :string surname :string suffixes :string gender :string
and treat midname as a space separated list of names (although this wont handle names like 'st clair' correctly).
Peter Hickman wrote:
I also note that you are omitting titles and suffixes such as "Queen Elizabeth II" who is also called "Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor". Or even "Hank Williams Jr" or "Hank WIlliams III" or "Sir Robert Geldof"
Some people have only one name which is neither a forename or a surname.
Lets ignore the artist formerly known a Prince for a moment
To be honest I would go with
user_id :integer title :string forename :string midname :string surname :string suffixes :string gender :string
and treat midname as a space separated list of names (although this wont handle names like 'st clair' correctly).
I am *sure* the intended audience of this application would be content with my proposal, but pursuing this argument is a waste of time and resources.