# Evil Scaffold

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623 "2006-10-18T10:39:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bparanj)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623/1 "2006-10-18T10:39:25Z")

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I read the Amy Hoy’s presentation on why scaffold is not a good thing  
for beginners. For admin  
application, is it ok to use scaffold?

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**Author:** ![bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bparanj)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623/2 "2006-10-18T10:39:27Z")

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Maybe. My biggest problem with scaffolding isn’t that it exists but that  
it does so very little. I’m in the process of converting a PHP tool of  
mine for Rails. It’s basically dynamic and ultra-configurable  
scaffolding. Scaffolding on crack, if you will. It’s designed for people  
who get sick of writing CRUD but aren’t satisfied with the lack of  
validation, presentation, etc. etc. of scaffolding. And it’s built on  
plugins, so you can actually do more than the basic CRUD (mass  
edit/update/delete anyone? Import/Export from CSV?). Designing for  
people who don’t know and won’t learn Ruby or Rails is the farthest  
thing from my mind.

Bala P. wrote:

> I read the Amy Hoy’s presentation on why scaffold is not a good thing for beginners. For admin  
> application, is it ok to use scaffold?
> 
> >

–  
Lance I.  
Web Applications Developer  
RBS Interactive  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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**Author:** ![bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bparanj)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623/3 "2006-10-18T10:39:30Z")

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— Lance I. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> plugins, so you can actually do more than the basic CRUD (mass  
> edit/update/delete anyone? Import/Export from CSV?).

Sounds like Streamlined to me. Streamlined does not have any tests and I  
don’t want to depend on  
something which does not have tests.

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**Author:** ![bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bparanj)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623/4 "2006-10-18T10:39:30Z")

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Um… Dont’ know what you consider tests… but… this appears to be  
a couple of tests:

[http://collaboa.streamlinedframework.org/repository/file/test/unit/streamlined\_generator\_test.rb](http://collaboa.streamlinedframework.org/repository/file/test/unit/streamlined_generator_test.rb)

And following the lead of Rails itself… here is the directory of  
templates for generating tests:

[http://collaboa.streamlinedframework.org/repository/browse/generator/templates/relevance\_extensions/test](http://collaboa.streamlinedframework.org/repository/browse/generator/templates/relevance_extensions/test)

What more do you want?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bparanj)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623/5 "2006-10-18T10:39:32Z")

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Yeah, I took a look at Streamlined a bit back. Didn’t dig too deeply,  
but it appeared to have a lot of similar functionality and goals but  
with a different approach.

Bala P. wrote:

> 

–  
Lance I.  
Web Applications Developer  
RBS Interactive  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bparanj)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623/6 "2006-10-18T10:39:49Z")

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I was at the Nova RUG presentation given by the developer of  
Streamlined, he said that they don’t  
have tests in place.

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**Author:** ![bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bparanj)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623/7 "2006-10-18T10:39:32Z")

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Sorry, back to your main question. Scaffold is a great place to start.  
And honestly, the scaffold for REST is pretty great.

script/generate scaffold\_resource Building name:string floors:integer  
build\_date:date

More info here:

[http://david.goodlad.ca/articles/2006/08/02/simply\_restful-in-rails-core](http://david.goodlad.ca/articles/2006/08/02/simply_restful-in-rails-core)  
If you want to watch a great video:  
[http://peepcode.com/articles/2006/10/08/restful-rails](http://peepcode.com/articles/2006/10/08/restful-rails)  
But definitely check out the cheat sheet on the page above as well.

Carl

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bparanj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bparanj)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/evil-scaffold/72623/8 "2006-10-18T10:40:04Z")

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I watched the peepcode screencast on RESTful Rails. The scaffold code  
looks clean but he  
recommends not to use scaffold if you are going to do TDD. For beginners  
it looks ok.
