# Routes.rb -- is it really needed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 1, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/routes-rb-is-it-really-needed/171381 "2009-07-01T13:21:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![awfreeman](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/13edae/32.png) [@awfreeman](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/awfreeman)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/routes-rb-is-it-really-needed/171381/1 "2009-07-01T13:21:36Z")
Has anyone recently thought about just merging routing into the controller? ActiveRecord handles associations very well. It seems like the controller should be able to handle its own associations just as well. Andy ---
**Author:** ![awfreeman](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/13edae/32.png) [@awfreeman](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/awfreeman)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/routes-rb-is-it-really-needed/171381/2 "2009-07-01T18:26:17Z")
Andy F. wrote: > Has anyone recently thought about just merging routing into the > controller? RESTful routing is not the only type of routing that Rails supports. You can also do custom routes with completely arbitrary names. In those cases, if there were no routes.rb, Rails wouldn’t even know which controller to call! ## Best, Marnen Laibow-Koser [http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid ---
**Author:** ![awfreeman](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/13edae/32.png) [@awfreeman](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/awfreeman)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 2:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/routes-rb-is-it-really-needed/171381/3 "2009-07-01T14:20:39Z")
Routing is not just controller associations. Routes can be also applied to models and globally across multiple scopes.