CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsmodel-view-controller
kasperite
kasperite

Reputation: 2478

Rails MVC concept in practice

I am not actually asking a question but rather an suggestion(or recommendation) on how to write code to fit nicely into Rails MVC pattern. Hope rails veteran or anyone familiar with MVC can give me some feedbacks.

I have an web app that talks to a RESTful api app via ActiveResource. It can fetch and update contents using API calls. It works perfectly. However, the web app does not have any models. The way it works is when user triggers an action(index,view,edit etc), the controller will directly call the REST api to fetch/update data.

My question is: Is it a good practice to do it this way or should I create models and populate data in there instead of directly calling the api? I was wondering if it is just a pragmatic compromise to MVC. I have just started working with Rails(and MVC) so I am open to any ideas, comments or recommendations on this

Upvotes: 1

Views: 507

Answers (2)

Tats_innit
Tats_innit

Reputation: 34107

It's a bit of a catch-22 question. (I did wrote a huge answer but then deleted because it will be too tedious to read)

If you mean, can you implement the MVC pattern without a model, then the answer is no. The M means Model.

If they mean, can you use the MVC without using a model, then the answer is "yes", but it is no longer MVC, you have obliterated the the M i.e. Model.

I would recommend you to read MVC pattern in detail and then try to understand what your application actually trying to do.

http://c2.com/ is a very good place if you want to understand the design patterns.

  • A model is an object representing data or even activity, e.g. a database table or even some plant-floor production-machine process.
  • A view is some form of visualization of the state of the model.
  • A controller offers facilities to change the state of the model.

Now in your case (it seems): you do have a data coming through via api so I would suggest populate the model properties and propagate it across.

Also Considering Pragmatic Compromise in MVC Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations. Omitting the use of Model in MVC do-not sound like a good idea, and it no longer remains MVC.

Having said that It seems from your point of view you are trying to say that Rails isn't necessarily strictly MVC hence why not use the way you want to :) but I will suggest to keep the integrity of MVC (and follow the purist approach).

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ModelViewController

Good read: jeff Atwoods: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/understanding-model-view-controller.html (Feel free to skip the asp.net part)

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1242908/in-english-what-really-is-model-view-controller

sums it all :) source is mentioned above.

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Upvotes: 2

Andrew Wei
Andrew Wei

Reputation: 2080

"The model consists of application data and business rules" (wikipedia)

A model is essentially a table in your database locally.

If you're not storing any data, not validating any data, then you don't need a model.

If you want to clean up your code, maybe put some functions in a helper or in /lib

Upvotes: 0

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