Question

I am building Rails 3 app and I need some help for my database design. I have model called Post. Posts also contains Tutorial, Example and Comments.

Comments has own model, but I was wondering should I build own models for Tutorials and Examples?

Tutorials and examples contains lot of links. Now should I build it like this?

Post
has_one :tutorial
has_one :example

Tutorial
belongs_to :post

Example
belongs_to :post

Or should I just put tutorial and example fields in Posts table? Tutorial and example are shown only when user views post.

Answer 1

Do Tutorial and Example have many attributes (and associated logic)? I’d say they should have their own model unless they only have one attribute, in which case a field in the Post table would do.

As an aside, if you are able to Comment on more than one model consider using a polymorphic association (Comment belongs_to :postable, :polymorphic => true):

http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#polymorphic-associations