Controller best practices

Rails
1

I’m frequently building controllers where i would like multiple methods
(in addition to index, edit, show, etc.). Most of the time the actions i
desire could be lumped into show as they are simple GET operations,
however I don’t want to put too much logic in any one controller action.

Here is a quick example of two different ways to achieve the same
thing…

class TwitterFriendController < ApplicationController

lump everything into show?

def show
if params[:id] == “follow”
users = current_user.following
elsif params[:id] == “follow_me”
users = current_user.users_who_follow_me
elsif params[:id] == “following_follow_me”
users = current_user.following_who_follow_me
elsif params[:id] == “following_who_do_not_follow_me”
users = current_user.following_who_do_not_follow_me
…
end
respond_with do |format|
format.json do {…}
end
end

or split everything out into separate methods, this requires

additional routing
def following
…
end

def users_who_follow_me
…
end

def following_who_follow_me
…
end

def following_who_do_not_follow_me
…
end
end

Everything in show

  • a ton of logic in one method
  • DRY ? # lots of extra code needed for logic
  • Less routing

Seperate Methods

  • More routing
  • not DRY
  • Easy method lookup
  • Easier to read individual methods

So again the real question is, which one of those techniques are less
bad.