SessionsHelper in railstutorial.org: A good design?

Rails
1

railstutorial.org has a suggestion which strikes me as a little odd.
Here:

http://ruby.railstutorial.org/chapters/sign-in-sign-out#code:sessions_helper_include

… it suggests this code:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
protect_from_forgery
include SessionsHelper
end

…making SessionsHelper available essentially everywhere. I
understand that authentication/authorization is cross-cutting, but is
this really the best place? Would functionality not strictly needed in
views be better placed in ApplicationController or elsewhere?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Craig

2

On 30 March 2011 03:36, Craig S. [email protected] wrote:

end

…making SessionsHelper available essentially everywhere. I
understand that authentication/authorization is cross-cutting, but is
this really the best place? Would functionality not strictly needed in
views be better placed in ApplicationController or elsewhere?

The above code does put it in ApplicationController. Perhaps I
misunderstand your question.

Colin

3

The SessionsHelper option makes the methods available from
ApplicationController, yes, but it makes them available in any view, as
well. That seems to me to be potentially too broad of a scope. Also,
putting code which implements, say, a before_filter which conditionally
redirects (as the railstutorial.org example does) in a module which more
commonly contains view helpers seems surprising.

I’m not sure if my concerns are well-founded or if I’m “thinking too
much” about this.

-Craig