# When to Create Classes? Do Java Programmers Over Use Classes **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [September 12, 2007, 11:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-create-classes-do-java-programmers-over-use-classes/114406 "2007-09-12T11:01:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SBSBSB](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@SBSBSB](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/SBSBSB)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2007, 11:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-create-classes-do-java-programmers-over-use-classes/114406/1 "2007-09-12T11:01:45Z")
Some people said “there goes the neighborhood” when rails came on the scene since it attracted everyone from former Java programmers, PHP programmers and even designers. Not to mention total newbs like myself weaned on rails. Right now I’m working on a project with a Java veteran (10+ years) who’s new to rails and ruby in general. We’re working on a so-called “enterprise” project to sell available space (I’ll leave it to your imagination). Developing with him drove me up the wall until I just gave up on learning anything and getting the project done rather than writing code I can be proud of. Dude wants to turn everything into a class and corresponding table with disregard for YAGNI. A case in point is we have three different stakeholders making transactions that fulfill various roles as well (like admin). Now all these stakeholders belong to a company (obviously, as it is a B2B system) which will have common attributes like address, tel, fax, url, name. To me I’d rather use a Company class to hold his info and tie that together with the various stakeholders and reuse it for other classes that might benefit from associations rather than duplicate the info across the app. The company class itself is not all that important to the application and is basically there to ensure there is one unique instance per company (don’t want 20 different Apple Inc.s being added to the app). That might be a matter of taste but it seems to make the application logic more complex because we can’t call the same associations since we now have ClientCompany, UserComany, etc. Basically he’s afraid of making the app brittle and doesn’t like the fact that it makes the class diagram generated by the railroad gem complicated looking. Another example is we’re going to have some restrictions on the transactions based on groups like industry, company, etc. My thought is to simply make a polymorphic join like BannedList with banned\_id & banned\_type but he’d rather create a separate class per type. I leave the dude alone and he starts making even more classes before trying to see if we can squeeze something out of the base class before we really have to separate it into a domain. It wasn’t supposed to be a complicated system. The problem is I don’t have enough seniority or experience for a full on confrontation. All I can say is that the project’s getting more tedious and hard to comprehend for no reason. I’d like to know what others think and if anyone’s having similar experiences (even from the other side like, " these newb ruby progs don’t know nothing about coding"). Cheers, Sam PS I’m looking for a job because of this (just to be safe). ---
**Author:** ![SBSBSB](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@SBSBSB](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/SBSBSB)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2007, 4:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-create-classes-do-java-programmers-over-use-classes/114406/2 "2007-09-12T16:24:07Z")
SB wrote: > Some people said “there goes the neighborhood” when rails came on the > scene since it attracted everyone from former Java programmers, PHP > programmers and even designers. Not to mention total newbs like > myself weaned on rails. The problem is not with Java its with him not being Agile and Pragmatic. 10+ years means nothing if in that time all you’ve picked up is bad habits. I too would use the polymorphic association model for the situations you describe. If the domain proved more complex down the line you would refactor individual at that point.