Question About Separation Of Concerns (ActiveRecord)

Hello,

I’m a bit stuck with where to put some method calls (separation of responsibility) and although I’m trying to do it just simply now in the models, I think my problem raises a bigger question about Fat Models. But that’s another subject for another day.

Right now, I have …

Event

has_many meetings

has an a invitation_expiry date field.

def invitation_expired?

DateTime.now.in_time_zone(‘UTC’) >= event.invitation_expiry.in_time_zone(‘UTC’)

end

Meeting

belongs_to :event

has_many :invitations

def invitation_expired?

event.invitation_expired?

end

Invitation

belongs_to :meeting

My problem is when an invitation is made, I want to check if the invitation has expired. I have thought of the following …

  1. include a method call in the Invitation model

Check if the meeting (event’s invitation) has expired (should it be called event_invitation_expired?

Should the invitation know anything about the Event class?

def meeting_expired? ## event_invitation_expired?

meeting.invitation_expired? ## meeting.event.invitation_expired?

end

  1. include an event_id foreign key in the invitations table so I can have the same method as in the Meeting model

def invitation_expired?

event.invitation_expired?

end

I’m happy with either one but am open to other ideas or what you would do.

The BIGGER question is, what exactly should go in the models?!! We talk about Fat models, but for me, that doesn’t fit nice with OO programming. To me, it’s quite clear that the we are not doing OO programming by stuffing our models with everything related to that model. There needs to be another level of abstraction to keep everything clean and have the separation of concerns.

I’m a self taught OO programmer and I come from a functional programming background, so maybe I’m talking out of my hat. But while writing tests for my app, to me, there are just too many code smells.

I look forward to your thought

-ants

Hello,

I'm a bit stuck with where to put some method calls (separation of responsibility) and although I'm trying to do it just simply now in the models, I think my problem raises a bigger question about Fat Models. But that's another subject for another day.

Right now, I have ....

Event has_many meetings ## has an a invitation_expiry date field. def invitation_expired? DateTime.now.in_time_zone('UTC') >= event.invitation_expiry.in_time_zone('UTC')

Nothing to do with your problem, just pointing out that there is no need to worry about time zones when comparing times, ruby will allow for the zone when doing the comparison.

end

Meeting belongs_to :event has_many :invitations

def invitation_expired? event.invitation_expired? end

Invitation belongs_to :meeting

My problem is when an invitation is made, I want to check if the invitation has expired. I have thought of the following ....

Where are you creating the invitation? Maybe the calling code should check before deciding to make it. Also have a look at ActiveSupport/#delegate. That allows you to say that a method is actually supplied by an associated class, so in Meeting for example you can delegate invitation_expired? to Event so you do not need to repeat the method.

The use of the name invitation_expired? seems very confusing to me here, that name suggests that it is an invitation object that has expired, how can it expire before you create it?

Colin

Colin,

Thanks for your reply.

The reason for the explicit in_time_zone call is because, in my app, events traverse different time zones. I parse the event’s invitation expiry date to the selected TZ, that is then saved in the DB as UTC. Upon retrieval, the UTC time is converted back to the chosen TZ. To see if an invitation has expired, I compare it to UTC.

I looked into AS#delegate. Thanks for that, I’ll give it a try.

I have been googling around on this subject and there are more people that think like me but like I said, it’s for another day. I will refactor my code but right now, I just want to feel comfortable with what I’m doing. Doing away with as many bad smells as possible.

Here’s one article I’ve just read http://solnic.eu/2011/08/01/making-activerecord-models-thin.html

I could rename the method event_invitation_expired? That’s not a problem. I’m rubbish at coming up with names for things.

-ants