Rails - Feb 2006 - Table Relationships and ActiveRecord Associations

First of all, I love Ruby on Rails.  I have an intermediate 
understanding of PHP, JavaScript, DOM and CSS, and that''s the extent of
my programming experience.  I''m developing an online game''s
web presence
with another colleague.  We''re the only two technical guys on a team of
+10 content developers.  So, baring all that in mind, here are my 
questions with a bit of background information:

We have a table for characters.  They can have items (weapons, armor, 
etc), skills, spells and other things, like languages.  They each have a 
class and race.

My question is about how to set up the different relationships between 
these tables.

Are there any good, in depth tutorials (with extensive examples) on how 
to set up relationships between tables?

For instance, I know that the relationship between a character and its 
class would be:

belongs_to, has_many

But how would I set up the relationship between characters and other 
items?  If a character has multiple "skills," how should I set up the 
other tables?  Would I use an "in between" table?  Would it be easier
to
serialize the information?  If so, how does that work?

I''m not terribly concerned about portability.  We use DreamHost as our 
host, who is wonderful enough to support Ruby, and we plan to stay with 
them.

I apologize for the gruesomely newbish form of this inquiry, but I would 
love to further the use of Ruby on the Web.

Sincerely,
Adam

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> Are there any good, in depth tutorials (with extensive examples) on how 
> to set up relationships between tables?
> 
> For instance, I know that the relationship between a character and its 
> class would be:
> 
> belongs_to, has_many
> 
> But how would I set up the relationship between characters and other 
> items?  If a character has multiple "skills," how should I set up
the
> other tables?  Would I use an "in between" table?  Would it be
easier to
> serialize the information?  If so, how does that work?

I''d suggest starting with by Googling about database normalisation 
techniques.
What you''re describing isn''t essentionally a RoR issue.

Then purchase a copy of the Pragmatic Programers book and learn how 
Active Record interacts with DB tables.

Finally expect to be doing a fair bit of Googling/posting on why things 
don''t work. I spend yesterday afteroon wondering why my HABTM 
relationships weren''t being created only to find there a bug where a 
model with >1 HABTM relationships . Its documented and theres a fix but 
I had to search the postings for the answer.

Tony



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On Monday, February 13, 2006, at 2:03 PM, Anthony Green
wrote:
>
>> Are there any good, in depth tutorials (with extensive examples) on how
>> to set up relationships between tables?
>>
>I''d suggest starting with by Googling about database normalisation
>techniques.
>What you''re describing isn''t essentionally a RoR issue.
Right. You sound like you need a book about database design in general.  
You can pick up a bit about about databases from reading Rails  
tutorials, but it''s not the whole story. I suggest the book
"Database
Design for Mere Mortals" which is actually a pretty easy read and will  
introduce you to planning your databases, normalization, joins, and all  
that fun stuff.

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Andrew Otwell wrote:
> On Monday, February 13, 2006, at 2:03 PM, Anthony Green wrote:
>>
>>> Are there any good, in depth tutorials (with extensive examples) on
how
>>> to set up relationships between tables?
>>>
> 
>>I''d suggest starting with by Googling about database
normalisation
>>techniques.
>>What you''re describing isn''t essentionally a RoR
issue.
> 
> Right. You sound like you need a book about database design in general.
> You can pick up a bit about about databases from reading Rails
> tutorials, but it''s not the whole story. I suggest the book
"Database
> Design for Mere Mortals" which is actually a pretty easy read and will
> introduce you to planning your databases, normalization, joins, and all
> that fun stuff.
It may sound strange, but O''Reilly published a book on Microsoft Access
(of all things) a while ago, and it contained a fairly concise, 
approachable, and detailed  treatment of normalization. Since it''s a
bit
dated, you might find a copy for a good price; the chapters on Access 
may not be current, but the database theory sections are still very 
useful.

=Jim

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Thanks for the advice, everyone who responded to my inquiry!  Sounds 
like it''s time to make a trip to B&N!


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