I thought that it might be worth starting a discussion about the best
approaches to deal with spec''ing what''s becoming more and more
common
in apps using active record.
It started with named scopes, now we have arel, and the old find calls
with parameters are being deprecated.
When I watched Ryan Bate''s latest opus
http://railscasts.com/episodes/202-active-record-queries-in-rails-3
this morning I decided it might be good to bring my concerns up.
The problem of course is that we''re going to get used to writing more
code like this:
Article.where("published_at <= ?", Time.now).includes(:comments)
>From one aspect, I find all this very nice. It makes writing queries
easier and much more readable.
On the other hand these are the kind of "train wreck" violations of
the "strong suggestion of Demeter" which makes mocking and stubbing
difficult among other things.
Thoughts?
--
Rick DeNatale
Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale
On Feb 22, 2010, at 6:07 PM, Rick DeNatale wrote:> I thought that it might be worth starting a discussion about the best > approaches to deal with spec''ing what''s becoming more and more common > in apps using active record. > > It started with named scopes, now we have arel, and the old find calls > with parameters are being deprecated. > > When I watched Ryan Bate''s latest opus > http://railscasts.com/episodes/202-active-record-queries-in-rails-3 > this morning I decided it might be good to bring my concerns up. > > The problem of course is that we''re going to get used to writing more > code like this: > > Article.where("published_at <= ?", Time.now).includes(:comments) > >> From one aspect, I find all this very nice. It makes writing queries > easier and much more readable. > > On the other hand these are the kind of "train wreck" violations of > the "strong suggestion of Demeter" which makes mocking and stubbing > difficult among other things. > > Thoughts?I haven''t spent enough time with it yet to know, but I suspect that surface mocking (what is usually called stubbing in this community) is going to get harder with the demeter violations. OTOH, I guess as there is more structure to a query, it might be easier to create a more general & dynamic mock library for it - something like lafcadio''s mocking library or fakefs. With a mocking library like that out there, we''ll have faster test suites. I''m hoping that it totally obliviates the need for a library like guillotine (http://github.com/smtlaissezfaire/guillotine). Scott> > -- > Rick DeNatale > > Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/ > Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale > WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale > LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 6:16 PM, Scott Taylor <scott at railsnewbie.com> wrote:> I haven''t spent enough time with it yet to know, but I suspect that surface mocking (what is usually called stubbing in this community) is going to get harder with the demeter violations. >One of the things that I tend to do, is to not use chained scopes in controllers, but define model methods which use them, which allows for stubbing/mocking those methods, and keeps the train wrecks isolated. -- Rick DeNatale Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale
From a mocking / stubbing perspective, how is this different from
Article.all(:conditions => [''published_at <= ?'',
Time.now], :include => :comments)
?
i.e. in both cases wouldn''t you do
class Article
def self.active_published
all :conditions => [''published_at <= ?'', Time.now],
:include => :comments
# where("published_at <= ?", Time.now).includes(:comments)
end
end
and mock the call to Article.active_published instead?
Pat
On Feb 22, 2010, at 3:07 PM, Rick DeNatale wrote:
> I thought that it might be worth starting a discussion about the best
> approaches to deal with spec''ing what''s becoming more and
more common
> in apps using active record.
>
> It started with named scopes, now we have arel, and the old find calls
> with parameters are being deprecated.
>
> When I watched Ryan Bate''s latest opus
> http://railscasts.com/episodes/202-active-record-queries-in-rails-3
> this morning I decided it might be good to bring my concerns up.
>
> The problem of course is that we''re going to get used to writing
more
> code like this:
>
> Article.where("published_at <= ?",
Time.now).includes(:comments)
>
>> From one aspect, I find all this very nice. It makes writing queries
> easier and much more readable.
>
> On the other hand these are the kind of "train wreck" violations
of
> the "strong suggestion of Demeter" which makes mocking and
stubbing
> difficult among other things.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> --
> Rick DeNatale
>
> Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale
> WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale
> _______________________________________________
> rspec-users mailing list
> rspec-users at rubyforge.org
> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users