Which verb?: Take a bus or take the train

rubyonrails-talk
1

Assume that at some point in the user's processing we come to a page in which the user is to select from one of several choices that will then determine which processing will happen on the next page ... perhaps putting up a bus route map if she selects "bus" and a train schedule if she selects "train".

What RESTful verb should I use to indicate this kind of choice? Show?

2

Possibly a choices controller with action show as you suggest.

Colin

3

Colin Law wrote:

Assume that at some point in the user's processing we come to a page in which the user is to select from one of several choices that will then determine which processing will happen on the next page ... perhaps putting up a bus route map if she selects "bus" and a train schedule if she selects "train".

What RESTful verb should I use to indicate this kind of choice? �Show?

Possibly a choices controller with action show as you suggest.

I'm not sure a separate controller is called for. In some cases it may make more sense to do show?transport=train , or to simply define nonstandard REST actions bus and train.

Remember, the 7 basic REST actions are merely convention. If they do not map well to your resources, there is nothing wrong or unRESTful with defining custom actions.

Colin

Best,

4

Colin Law wrote:

5

Colin Law wrote:

Assume that at some point in the user’s processing we come to a page in

which the user is to select from one of several choices that will then

determine which processing will happen on the next page … perhaps

putting up a bus route map if she selects “bus” and a train schedule if

she selects “train”.

What RESTful verb should I use to indicate this kind of choice? �Show?

Possibly a choices controller with action show as you suggest.

Colin

Colin, thank you.

Can you point me at what a “choices controller” looks like?

Ralph

Ralph, you can look at a web page as being the current state and the

links on page can represent the transitions between your states (i.e. web

pages). Thus, in the past, I have created wizards which used an underlying

state machine which worked out well. Finally, Mike Hagedorn wrote recipe 16 in

“Advanced Rails Recipes” which demonstrates the usage of the acts_as_state_machine

gem.

Good luck,

-Conrad