Chapter 11

Page 125. I need to create a users table. You’ve seen me do this enough, before. I don’t think I need to show it again.

Page 126. I generate the model for User. I generate all of the controllers for Login and User.

Ok, I keep following through th chapter. It doesn’t get interesting until…

Page 131. I need to create a User.login method. In it, I need to pass the name and password that the user entered, to the find method. Here’s how the book shows that method call:

find(:first,
     :conditions => ["name = ? and hashed_password = ?",
                      name, hashed_password])

Now, Ackbar has the ability to do simple SQL fragments like this one. So, I could code the method exactly this way and it would work. Or, to make the conditions look a little more KirbyBase-esque, here is an alternate implementation:

find(:first) { |rec| rec.name == name and
 rec.hashed_password == hashed_password }

I am probably a little biased, but I like the second way a lot better. :)

One more change on page 131. I need to add an Order.count_pending method. The book’s version looks like this:

def self.count_pending
  count("shipped_at is null")
end

But, as mentioned earlier, KirbyBase uses Ruby’s nil object instead. So, my implementation of this method will look like this:

def self.count_pending
  count { |rec| rec.shipped_at.nil? }
end

That’s all there is too it. The rest of the chapter, while interesting to finish, holds no code that KirbyBase could not handle.

So, I made it through Chapter 11. And, I’m left with a finished Depot Application that performs identically to the one in the book, only it is using Ackbar/KirbyBase as it’s database management system.

This exercise actually went smoother than I had hoped. A big reason is the obviously well thought out design of ActiveRecord, making it possible and practicable to substitue non-SQL database management systems. The other big reason this went so smoothly is due to Assaph Mehr’s care and dedication in crafting Ackbar. Thanks, Assaph!

Even though I accomplished my goal, I would like to post one more entry in the next few days. In it, I will try to summarize some of the lessons I learned while working through this exercise, some of reasons you might consider using Ackbar/KirbyBase in your Rails development, and some of the areas where using Ackbar/KirbyBase probably doesn’t make sense.

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