This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Obie Fernandez. Original Post: Are you a Desiccant? Feed Title: Obie On Rails (Has It Been 9 Years Already?) Feed URL: http://jroller.com/obie/feed/entries/rss Feed Description: Obie Fernandez talks about life as a technologist, mostly as ramblings about software development and consulting. Nowadays it's pretty much all about Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Obie Fernandez Latest Posts From Obie On Rails (Has It Been 9 Years Already?)

Desiccant: A substance used as a DRYing agent

Applied to programming, someone who is an expert follower of the DRY principle - Don't Repeat Yourself

I don't claim credit for applying the term this way. Bruce Balmer sent the following email to the Rails mailing list...

I am breaking the DRY principle - could I avoid it?
I have two controller methods, new and edit.  They use the same form,
largely because they must.

I have the following code in both methods:

    @bb_tasks = BbTask.find(:all)
    @projects = Project.find(:all)
    @clients = Client.find(:all)
    @tasks = Task.find(:all)

The form needs those objects.  But I can't help feeling that I should
have another way to do this so I avoid aggravating the DRY police.
Far from the desiccated code I wish to write, I feel it is positively
soggy.

Use a conditional before filter:

 before_filter :fetch_collections, :only => [:new, :edit]

 # ...

 private

   def fetch_collections
     @bb_tasks = BbTask.find(:all)
     @projects = Project.find(:all)
     @clients = Client.find(:all)
     @tasks = Task.find(:all)
   end

 marcel

Marcel:

You are a thing of beauty.  Thank you.  That is what I needed. I had
heard of before_filter but had not made the connection.

You are a desiccant, sir!