I used to write Ruby code like this a lot when I my brain was still half .NET.

def is_ready?
  if self.status > 3
    return true
  else
    return false
  end
end

I see this all the time on the Rails mailing list. Would you be surprised to know that you can write the same method this way:

def ready?
  self.status > 3
end

(I’d do away the the magic number “3” in favor of a constant, but I digress…)

Notice two things:

One of the most common features for web applications I’ve built over the last 4 years doing rails is file management. Users download file attachments in almost every web application I use. Thankfully rails has a really capable suite of file management tools, and there are several great plugins to handle some of the more mundane functionality you’d need.

Over the next month or so I’m going to cover the set of techniques I use when building file management solutions for my clients, and some really exciting up and coming solutions which solve the last of my annoyances.

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Update:

A bang can used in the below ways, in order of my personal preference.

1) An active record method raises an error if the method does not do what it says it will. (e.g. create!)
2) An active record method saves the record or a method saves an object (e.g. strip!)
3) A method does something “extra”, like posts to someplace, or does some action.
4) other things

A long time ago Francis Hwang gave a presentation on ‘testing heresies’

One of his points was that he had experienced lots of bad things when trying to use fixtures, despite the fact that people encouraged you to use them.

Then recently Josh posted about how there are lots of choices when we setup new rails apps these days

In the comments, Francis reiterated his point.