Rails - Jan 2006 - scaffolding generators and pluralization rules

I''ve been working through the "Rolling with Ruby on Rails"
tutorial and have come up against something I''m hoping someone here can
help me understand.

In part two of the tutorial, Curt introduces the "ruby script\generate
scaffold re
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060123/fdcfa2b5/attachment.html

Oops ;-p   Please forgive the previous, premature send.  To restart...

-----------------------------------------------------------

I''ve been working through the "Rolling with Ruby on Rails"
tutorial and have come up against something I''m hoping someone here can
help me understand.

In part one of the tutorial Curt steps the reader through the use of
''generate controller'' and ''generate model''. 
Way cool.  In part two, he briefly introduces the new ''generate
scaffold'' but continues on using what I thought was an equivalent
approach that simply required more steps on the programmer''s part. 
That is, I figured ''generate scaffold'' was a ''roll
up'' of existing functionality.  Unfortunately, my investigation of
''generate scaffold'' leaves me scratching my head. 
Specifically...

The use of "generate controller" results in the creation of a
''recipe_controller.rb'' file and a
''..\views\recipe'' folder.  The use of ''generate
scaffold'' creates ''recipes_controller'' and
''..\views\recipes''.  Class names within the controller are
different too.

With ''convention'' playing such an important role in Ruby and
Rails, I''ve got the feeling that I should understand what''s
going on here.  Can anyone help?

Thanks,
Bill

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060123/6bb94f56/attachment.html

Bill Walton wrote:
> With ''convention'' playing such an important role in Ruby
and Rails, I''ve
> got the feeling that I should understand what''s going on here. 
Can
> anyone help?
The scaffold generator just pluralises where the controller generator 
doesn''t.  That''s all there is to it, really.  You can override
the
pluralisation by saying script/generate scaffold ModelName ModelName 
(that is, repeat the model name precisely).

It seems a little inconsistent, but I think I''ve got my head around the
logic behind why it''s doing what it''s doing.  Basically, when
you
generate a controller on its own, the assumption is that you know what 
it''s for, and it may well not be tied to a specific model.  The 
generator therefore can''t assume that it''s logical to
pluralise the
name, because it doesn''t know that your controller is going to be used 
to control bunches of objects.

With the scaffolded code, on the other hand, the generator *does* know 
that the controller is handling more than one object, so /pages/list 
makes more sense than /page/list.

At least, that''s how I see it.

-- 
Alex