Learning How to Abstract Code

In my last post, I was talking about how to deal with coder's block. I've been working on my current project, Dungeon Crawler, for about a month and I'd really hit a wall.

The problem was due to a couple of things. First, I'd gotten a lot of really good advice that I didn't quite understand, and I felt bad that I wasn't getting it, so I was reluctant to ask for more advice. Second, I'd already spent so much time without making any progress that I was getting sick of the project.

But I think I've gotten through my lack of motivation and I've made some progress with this project, but the code is an explicit, redundant mess. So the question at this point becomes is it better for me to make some progress coding in a way that I know is bad, or to not make progress at all?

Obviously it's better to make progress (and I did learn a bit about YAML tonight, so it's not entirely a wash) but it's about time I got better at writing code. I've noticed a problem with the way I write code: I'm far too heavy handed and I repeat myself too much. I need to get better at abstracting my code, so that's my current goal.

Maybe this is easier said than done, but at least I'm losing track of time while coding again, right?

Code abstraction and models in Rails

I felt like I had a minor break through tonight, thanks in part to my friend Brent. Abstracting code using partials is something that's made sense to me for a long time. Basically, you're just cleaning up the code of a view by creating another bit of code that's called using a render method.

However, last night as I was writing some partials, I noticed I was loading quite a bit of logic into my view and it felt wrong, somehow. I felt...dirty. I was on the right track when I assumed there was a way to collect this logic into a method, then just call that method in the view, rather than having all the logic piling up, making an untidy mess of my code.

But I didn't quite get how to define a method in a model. Sure, I've defined methods such as:

def foo
  bar
end

But usually I got this code by following a tutorial, or reading through a book and so forth. It was never my code, and I think that was the reason I didn't really understand it. Now that a situation has arisen that I needed to learn how to write logic into a model and then call it in the view, I understand it. Funny how that works, huh?

Also, I don't think I'm quite as done with Manticore as I thought last night. I'm obviously still learning from working on it, and that's what I'm after. I've got some big ideas that are frankly a bit intimidating (user account creation and log-in, differing account types and permissions for dungeon masters and players, to name just two) but what's the best way to get over being intimidated by coding? By getting excited about coding. It's brought me this far, anyway!

Code abstraction with partials in Rails

Abstraction was the name of the game tonight. As you many know, I have a _menu partial running across most of my pages. This partial links to a character, as well as his spells, skills, items and so on. I had a second area in the Character's view page that allowed users to add new pages, and the link would disappear once the page had been created. Why not move this create method up into the _menu partial and get it out of the Character's view page? That makes sense, right?

I thought so, but here was the problem. I had some text that said "Add:" with links for items, spells, skills and so forth. I didn't want either the text or the link showing up unless the page hadn't been created. Only showing a link_to method if that page hasn't been created is easy, but I couldn't figure out a simple way of only displaying some text if all pages that could be created hadn't been created. An easier solution would have been just to axe the "Add:" text altogether, but I like it as a bit of guidance and separation.

This may be a case of me understanding partials well, so every problem appears to be a problem that can be solved with partials, but here's how I wrote the code.

First, I created a new partial, called "_menu_create" and threw it in the Characters view folder.

Here's the code for the partial:

Add:
<%= link_to 'Items Page', character_items_path(@character) unless @character.items.exists? %>
...
<%= link_to 'Background Page', new_character_background_path(@character) unless @character.background %>

And here's the method for rendering the partial:

<% unless @character.items.exists? and @character.skills.exists? and @character.specials.exists? and @character.spells.exists? and @character.background %>
  <%= render 'characters/menu_create'%>

I feel like this is a bit over-engineered, especially since all it does that's different is not display the "Add:" text, but it works and I'm pleased with the result.

What's your opinion? Is there an easier way to do this? Is there also an easier way to group several conditionals together, so instead of writing the code as:

<% unless @character.items.exists? and @character.skills.exists? and @character.specials.exists? and @character.spells.exists? and @character.background %>

I could group all of these into a grouping called "conditions", and call something like:

<% unless @character.conditions? %>

Which would have the same effect? I'm guessing there IS something like this, and I just haven't run into it. I'm also getting the feeling I'm ready to move onto another project pretty soon, maybe running through more tutorials, or getting another book, or working on another personal project. Any suggestions? Should I keep working on Manticore? It's kind of hard to get a feeling for WHAT I should be working on, just that I should be working on SOMETHING. Crafting Rails Applications isn't quite what I was looking for, either. I was expecting something closer to Agile Web Development and it's more like a series of mini-tutorials, mostly for serious customization and I'm not quite ready for that jelly.