Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Ladies and Gentlemen, today you shall be
thrilled and dazzled by wonders of magical mystery.
Dr Nic?s Magic Models will now be unveiled to all. Mystery and magic
that you will be able to perform at home.
Within your ActiveRecord models, never again will you need to write:
* validates_presence_of validations
* has_many and belongs_to statements
* has_many :through statements!!
And for the finale, you will be amazed and astounded as you watch
ActiveRecord models appear from nowhere. No class definition, just any
old database tables you have lying around the home is all you?ll need to
perform this trick!
No cover charge. No free steak knives. No heavy lifting involved.
Installation, DIY magical instructions, and a world of mystery awaits
you at:
http://magicmodels.rubyforge.org
Dr Nic: http://drnicwilliams.com
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Wow, that looks pretty damn awesome! Right now, adding all the validates, habtm, hm, etc. usually takes me a bit more time than I''d care to spend. Having it all be automatic would be cool. It looks like your plugin also automatically handles belongs_to -- how about has_one? Joe -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Joe wrote:> Wow, that looks pretty damn awesome! Right now, adding all the > validates, habtm, hm, etc. usually takes me a bit more time than I''d > care to spend. Having it all be automatic would be cool. It looks like > your plugin also automatically handles belongs_to -- how about has_one? > > JoeOooh. I forgot to write up that one. Let''s make it a secret feature! In the case of the example on the website, if you did: person = Person.find_first person.memberships => list of Memberships person.membership => :first item of Memberships list So you get both for free based on which method name you call. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> http://magicmodels.rubyforge.orgBTW, an extension will come out in future for the Magic Models to work with the Composite Primary Keys solution. Cheers Nic -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Hi Dr. Nic! This looks very interesting. I''ll try it after work today. I''m curious to see how it works with the Dry Scaffold announced recently. Some questions: Are there any performance penalities associated with all this magic? Is all this introspection done once or with each request? If any relationships are defined, does magic models respect them? Hammed On 8/8/06, Dr Nic <drnicwilliams@gmail.com> wrote:> > > http://magicmodels.rubyforge.org > > BTW, an extension will come out in future for the Magic Models to work > with the Composite Primary Keys solution. > > Cheers > Nic > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060808/7c3158b5/attachment.html
> This looks very interesting. I''ll try it after work today. I''m curious > to > see how it works with the Dry Scaffold announced recently.Do you have a URL for that?> Some questions: > > Are there any performance penalities associated with all this magic? Is > all > this introspection done once or with each request? > > If any relationships are defined, does magic models respect them?It uses lazy evaluation - if you send "groups" to a Person object, and that method doesn''t exist already (ie. you haven''t already defined the has_many :groups, :through => :memberships association), then it will build that assocation for you - just as if you''d done it manually in your class definition. Once. Then the method will be there next time. The only additional performance overhead is the one-time collection of some table and column meta-data via the connection object. The class creation is similar - if you ask for a constant that doesn''t exist, e.g. Person, then it will look through the table model for a table that might match such a class name, e.g. people, and build the class on top of it. Next time you ask for that class, its already built. Again, its a one-time meta-data request to database. Ruby is wonderful :) -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
DRY Scaffold: http://dry.rubyforge.org/ Good to know about the low overhead. Looking forward to trying it out. On 8/8/06, Dr Nic <drnicwilliams@gmail.com> wrote:> > > This looks very interesting. I''ll try it after work today. I''m curious > > to > > see how it works with the Dry Scaffold announced recently. > > Do you have a URL for that? > > > Some questions: > > > > Are there any performance penalities associated with all this magic? Is > > all > > this introspection done once or with each request? > > > > If any relationships are defined, does magic models respect them? > > It uses lazy evaluation - if you send "groups" to a Person object, and > that method doesn''t exist already (ie. you haven''t already defined the > has_many :groups, :through => :memberships association), then it will > build that assocation for you - just as if you''d done it manually in > your class definition. Once. Then the method will be there next time. > > The only additional performance overhead is the one-time collection of > some table and column meta-data via the connection object. > > The class creation is similar - if you ask for a constant that doesn''t > exist, e.g. Person, then it will look through the table model for a > table that might match such a class name, e.g. people, and build the > class on top of it. Next time you ask for that class, its already built. > Again, its a one-time meta-data request to database. > > Ruby is wonderful :) > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060808/ba5a11f8/attachment-0001.html
Hammed Malik wrote:> DRY Scaffold: http://dry.rubyforge.org/ > > Good to know about the low overhead. Looking forward to trying it out.I''ll have a play with the Dry Scaffold (which looks very similar to the www.ajaxscaffold.com solution) and find out how it reflectively determines the associations. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Haha, I love magic tricks! Very nice trick Dr. Nic! Very nice trick indeed. I am very curious on how much of an cost impact this incurs compared to the vanilla AR, but truth be told, it can be made up elsewhere. A Benchmark would be nice to see how much it does impact it though :) Definately will be keeping an eye on this project. Congrats. -NSHB On 8/7/06, Dr Nic <drnicwilliams@gmail.com> wrote:> > Hammed Malik wrote: > > DRY Scaffold: http://dry.rubyforge.org/ > > > > Good to know about the low overhead. Looking forward to trying it out. > > I''ll have a play with the Dry Scaffold (which looks very similar to the > www.ajaxscaffold.com solution) and find out how it reflectively > determines the associations. > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- Kind regards, Nathaniel Brown President & CEO Inimit Innovations Inc. - http://inimit.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060808/9c7261ab/attachment.html
Dr Nic wrote:> Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Ladies and Gentlemen, today you shall be > thrilled and dazzled by wonders of magical mystery. >Wow! This is an amazing achievement, having been writing models exclusively yesterday, most of it repeat typing validates_presence_of and has_many :through, this is friggin'' awesome!! Though I do fear that if Rails keeps innovating and improving at this rate there''s gonna very little for us programmers to do! Fantastic work Dr Nic (and I love the presentation, I''m a sucker for magic tricks!) -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Nic, thats great, im gonna test it... does it care about maximum length too? there''s so much in our models were we weren''t DRY, e.g. the presence, maximum length, even format of a field (number, date, datetime etc) is that already in your gem or can it be done for next release? 2006/8/7, Dr Nic <drnicwilliams@gmail.com>:> > Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Ladies and Gentlemen, today you shall be > thrilled and dazzled by wonders of magical mystery. > > Dr Nic''s Magic Models will now be unveiled to all. Mystery and magic > that you will be able to perform at home. > > Within your ActiveRecord models, never again will you need to write: > > * validates_presence_of validations > * has_many and belongs_to statements > * has_many :through statements!! > > And for the finale, you will be amazed and astounded as you watch > ActiveRecord models appear from nowhere. No class definition, just any > old database tables you have lying around the home is all you''ll need to > perform this trick! > > No cover charge. No free steak knives. No heavy lifting involved. > > Installation, DIY magical instructions, and a world of mystery awaits > you at: > http://magicmodels.rubyforge.org > > Dr Nic: http://drnicwilliams.com > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- Michael Siebert <info@siebert-wd.de> www.stellar-legends.de - Weltraum-Browsergame im Alpha-Stadium -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060808/bbfc1bbb/attachment.html
Chris wrote:> Dr Nic wrote: >> Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Ladies and Gentlemen, today you shall be >> thrilled and dazzled by wonders of magical mystery. >> > > Wow! This is an amazing achievement, having been writing models > exclusively > yesterday, most of it repeat typing validates_presence_of and has_many > :through, this is friggin'' awesome!!Sorry I didn''t release it a day earlier... :( I just couldn''t find time to write the website for it. But I did fix a bug in it whilst writing the tutorial/magic show. So that''s a bonus :)> Though I do fear that if Rails keeps innovating and improving at this > rate there''s gonna very little for us programmers to do!We read blogs and forums to keep up-to-date with all the time saving tricks and tools that are available!> Fantastic work Dr Nic (and I love the presentation, I''m a sucker for > magic tricks!)I''m loving the AdSense on this thread: * Must-See New Blender * Magic Bullet * Coin Trick * Learn David Blaine Magic -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Michael Siebert wrote:> Nic, > thats great, im gonna test it... does it care about maximum length too? > there''s so much in our models were we weren''t DRY, e.g. the presence, > maximum length, even format of a field (number, date, datetime etc) > is that already in your gem or can it be done for next release?It has all the same support/limitations that ActiveRecord Associations/Validations have now. If your old model class looked like: class Account < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :charges belongs_to :user validates_presence_of :initial_balance end and that worked for you, then you can replace it with: class Account < ActiveRecord::Base end If you had more complicated has_many/belongs_to associations, or if you used additional validations, then you''ll need to add those manually as usual. "DRY" - I should have used that in the magic show somehow... Cheers Nic -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Can I use it with existing schemas ? Stuart On 8/8/06, Dr Nic <drnicwilliams@gmail.com> wrote:> Michael Siebert wrote: > > Nic, > > thats great, im gonna test it... does it care about maximum length too? > > there''s so much in our models were we weren''t DRY, e.g. the presence, > > maximum length, even format of a field (number, date, datetime etc) > > is that already in your gem or can it be done for next release? > > It has all the same support/limitations that ActiveRecord > Associations/Validations have now. > > If your old model class looked like: > > class Account < ActiveRecord::Base > has_many :charges > belongs_to :user > validates_presence_of :initial_balance > end > > and that worked for you, then you can replace it with: > > class Account < ActiveRecord::Base > end > > If you had more complicated has_many/belongs_to associations, or if you > used additional validations, then you''ll need to add those manually as > usual. > > "DRY" - I should have used that in the magic show somehow... > > Cheers > Nic > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
Stuart Fellowes wrote:> Can I use it with existing schemas ?Yes. I actually conceived the idea of auto-generating the ActiveRecord classes first, of all the features in the Magic Models, because I was faced with a legacy database with 50+ tables in it. I''d rather spend two days writing something like the Magic Models gem than spend one day knuckling down and doing it the manual way :) Magic Models don''t currently work with Composite Primary Keys but I''ll extend MM to do so in the future. Subscribe to the blog (http://drnicwilliams.com) for an announcement. Cheers Nic -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
I''m not sure whether to be appalled or elated over this trickery. One of the biggest complaints I hear about the rails naysayers is the inability to look at the model class (a la ActiveRecord) and be able to determine what fields it contains (forcing you to have to look in the database schema) when doing your development. So, prior to Dr Nic''s Magic models, you would have TWO places to look for model information - the model class def (to see relationships and validation rules) and the database schema for everything else. Now (in certain circumstances), EVERYTHING can be found in the schema. Something neat (and scary) about that. At the very least, it''s a super-neat trick. At the most, it''s yet ANOTHER way to DRY by using convention over configuration. If you are already setting limits in the schema (not null, length, etc), why repeat it in your model? Huh. I don''t know if I can force myself to take my hand off the ''railing'' and say, "look ma, no models!".....but I am overjoyed at the option. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
J Amiel wrote:> I''m not sure whether to be appalled or elated over this trickery.A: Elated. Glad I could help answer that one for you :) Oh and its not "trickery" its "magic"! Where you say, "tada!" at the end.> One of the biggest complaints I hear about the rails naysayers is the > inability to look at the model class (a la ActiveRecord) and be able to > determine what fields it contains (forcing you to have to look in the > database schema) when doing your development.You can get the columns of the underlying table via @obj.columns /@obj.class.columns; if that helps.> So, prior to Dr Nic''s Magic models, you would have TWO places to look > for model information - the model class def (to see relationships and > validation rules) and the database schema for everything else. > > Now (in certain circumstances), EVERYTHING can be found in the schema. > Something neat (and scary) about that.It''s only a pity that there isn''t MORE meta-data that can be found via the current ActiveRecord API. It''s limited by a "lowest-common denominator" approach ; for example, you cannot discover any foreign keys.> At the very least, it''s a super-neat trick. > At the most, it''s yet ANOTHER way to DRY by using convention over > configuration. If you are already setting limits in the schema (not > null, length, etc), why repeat it in your model?Oooh. Hadn''t thought of a validation of length... Nice one. I think someone else mentioned length before, but I hadn''t thought of generating a validation for it.> I don''t know if I can force myself to take my hand off the ''railing'' and > say, "look ma, no models!".....but I am overjoyed at the option.I think you''ll quickly need your models if you want to add methods and specific associations. Plus with something like the annotate_models plugin, you can generate a comment header to show you the schema definition. With the exception of the validations which you currently cannot turn off (if the column is not-null, then you get a validates_presence_of) all the other features are still optional as required by the developer (if you don''t want an association generated... don''t call the method!) It all works on the assumption that if you call a method on an object then the object assumes you were looking for something and tries to help. The logic of Magic Models is, If no method currently exists "perhaps he wanted an association to another table?" If it can generate an association for you, it will, and will return the result. Else it will return the normal error for missing method. Cheers Nic -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
On Aug 8, 2006, at 4:09 PM, J Amiel wrote:> One of the biggest complaints I hear about the rails naysayers is the > inability to look at the model class (a la ActiveRecord) and be > able to > determine what fields it contains (forcing you to have to look in the > database schema) when doing your development.This is simple and handy: annotate_models http://plugins.radrails.org/directory/show/12 For visualization there''s this Visualize Models http://visualizemodels.rubyforge.org/ -- fxn
2006/8/8, Dr Nic <drnicwilliams@gmail.com>:> Oooh. Hadn''t thought of a validation of length... Nice one. I think > someone else mentioned length before, but I hadn''t thought of generating > a validation for it.thats exactly what i wanted to say. just DRY -- Michael Siebert <info@siebert-wd.de> www.stellar-legends.de - Weltraum-Browsergame im Alpha-Stadium -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060808/10306b58/attachment.html
2006/8/8, Xavier Noria <fxn@hashref.com>:> > This is simple and handy: > > annotate_models > http://plugins.radrails.org/directory/show/12 > > For visualization there''s this > > Visualize Models > http://visualizemodels.rubyforge.org/do they work when i dont have ANY model file? -- Michael Siebert <info@siebert-wd.de> www.stellar-legends.de - Weltraum-Browsergame im Alpha-Stadium -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060808/dd8d9c62/attachment.html
On Aug 8, 2006, at 5:46 PM, Michael Siebert wrote:> 2006/8/8, Xavier Noria <fxn@hashref.com>: > This is simple and handy: > > annotate_models > http://plugins.radrails.org/directory/show/12 > > For visualization there''s this > > Visualize Models > http://visualizemodels.rubyforge.org/ > > do they work when i dont have ANY model file?The diagram for an empty model set is the empty canvas by definition! Oh well, unless there''s some magic going on, yeah umh. -- fxn
Michael Siebert wrote:> 2006/8/8, Xavier Noria <fxn@hashref.com>: >> >> This is simple and handy: >> >> annotate_models >> http://plugins.radrails.org/directory/show/12 >> >> For visualization there''s this >> >> Visualize Models >> http://visualizemodels.rubyforge.org/ > > > do they work when i dont have ANY model file?The latter seems to only use models in the apps/models folder and derives its associations itself, rather than using has_many/belongs_to if defined. Similarly for the former - no point annotating a model file if you don''t have one :) But as an aside, after chatting with a few people, the next release will include a class method on ActiveRecord::Base called ''generate_all_classes'' (for situations where you need all your models and their associations now). Cheers Nic -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> Think it''s possible to get constraint info from the database and figure > out additional validates_* from that? I don''t know if MySQL even has > contraints yet, but with PostgreSQL you can specify things like ''check > age > 0 and age < 150'', etc. Another idea is that columns with unique > constraints could also translate into validates_uniqueness_of. Just a > couple ideas if you want to get crazy. ;)Someone pointed me to http://www.redhillconsulting.com.au/blogs/simon/archives/000339.html where Simon has some more code ideas on generating validations based on the schema data that is available through the current ActiveRecord API. Adding these will be the first upgrade to the validation generation. Using database-type-specific meta-data might be difficult until there is an API for exposing the data first. Not impossible - merely not my area of expertise at the moment. Cheers Nic -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Dr. Nic - Think it''s possible to get constraint info from the database and figure out additional validates_* from that? I don''t know if MySQL even has contraints yet, but with PostgreSQL you can specify things like ''check age > 0 and age < 150'', etc. Another idea is that columns with unique constraints could also translate into validates_uniqueness_of. Just a couple ideas if you want to get crazy. ;) Joe -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Dr Nic said something:> If you had more complicated has_many/belongs_to associations, or if you > used additional validations, then you''ll need to add those manually as > usual.(some of) The additional validations can be magickally generated by the schema_validations plugin, from http://www.redhillconsulting.com.au/rails_plugins.html iain -- "If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." -- St. Augustine #rm -rf / http://www.geeksoc.org/
Dr Nic wrote:> Dr Nic?s Magic Models will now be unveiled to all. Mystery and magic > that you will be able to perform at home.I would love to see a console app distributed with this so that I could do something like: % drnic --mysql -d my_active_record_db -u username -p password And instantly be in an IRB session with whatever database I chose. -- John Long http://wiseheartdesign.com http://radiantcms.org
>> Dr Nic?s Magic Models will now be unveiled to all. Mystery and magic >> that you will be able to perform at home. > > I would love to see a console app distributed with this so that I could > do something like: > > % drnic --mysql -d my_active_record_db -u username -p password > > And instantly be in an IRB session with whatever database I chose.Two things: i) That should be possible. ii) My ego wouldn''t allow it to be called ''drnic'' :) The dynamic construction of the connection parameters from the arguments might be difficult (read: I don''t know how I''d do that generically for all DBs). Does anyone have/know-of a similar Ruby app that takes connection parameters via the application arguments? Definitely a good idea, John. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
On 08/08/06, Dr Nic <drnicwilliams@gmail.com> wrote:> I think you''ll quickly need your models if you want to add methods and > specific associations. Plus with something like the annotate_models > plugin, you can generate a comment header to show you the schema > definition.If you use TextMate, you might like to try Chris Roos'' command which displays the table structure in a tooltip - http://blog.seagul.co.uk/articles/2006/07/14/textmate-command-to-display-active-record-column-attributes. I think it''s now been incorporated into the TextMate rails bundle.
James Mead wrote:> On 08/08/06, Dr Nic <drnicwilliams@gmail.com> wrote: >> I think you''ll quickly need your models if you want to add methods and >> specific associations. Plus with something like the annotate_models >> plugin, you can generate a comment header to show you the schema >> definition. > > If you use TextMate, you might like to try Chris Roos'' command which > displays the table structure in a tooltip - > http://blog.seagul.co.uk/articles/2006/07/14/textmate-command-to-display-active-record-column-attributes. > I think it''s now been incorporated into the TextMate rails bundle.That''s sexy - I think its definitely a good idea for Rails-specific IDEs to allow Model -> Schema view -> Model transition hot keys. I use RadRails and it supports Model -> Unit Test -> Model windows via Shift-Ctrl-V. Perhaps I''ll see I can get them to add a Model -> Schema View -> Model transitions on Shift-Ctrl-S or something. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.