# Modelling Question - developing meta system

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/modelling-question-developing-meta-system/186445>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 7, 2010, 10:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/modelling-question-developing-meta-system/186445 "2010-04-07T10:34:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 10:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/modelling-question-developing-meta-system/186445/1 "2010-04-07T10:34:01Z")

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Hey everyone,

Just a quick Q.

Can anybody point me to some resources regarding a modeling quandary I  
am in. I have to develop a meta system that allows users to specify  
their own model variables. For instance, I have a model Team and the  
users must be able to define, through a simple web interface,  
variables such as name (specifying the variable as a string), number  
of players (specifying the variable as a drop down of numbers) and  
then other users can enter teams into the system. This is similar to  
content creation kit in drupal but a lot less “DRUPAL” and a lot more  
rails. I can put this together but think that I will end up with a  
messy application that will ultimately serve to frustrate. Has  
anybody come across discussion on this before?

Thanks

j

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/modelling-question-developing-meta-system/186445/2 "2010-04-07T12:04:10Z")

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On Apr 7, 9:32 am, “removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> then other users can enter teams into the system. This is similar to  
> content creation kit in drupal but a lot less “DRUPAL” and a lot more  
> rails. I can put this together but think that I will end up with a  
> messy application that will ultimately serve to frustrate. Has  
> anybody come across discussion on this before?

Well you could model this as Team having many attributes and the  
attributes table stores key value pairs. You could separately store  
which attributes are permissible for the Team model.  
You might also find that a document database like couchdb makes this  
less hassle.

Fred

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 7:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/modelling-question-developing-meta-system/186445/3 "2010-04-08T07:12:10Z")

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Thanks Fred

On Apr 7, 11:02 am, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)