Question

Updated this post as per post recommendations:
Inconsistent naming conventions in rails is confusing the heck out of me. IT SEEMS LIKE THE SYNTAX IS ALL OVER THE PLACE IN RAILS…

Here are some examples:

Why are there commas in the migration below ? And why is keyword “default” not with a colon before it? What is this default keyword? a method, or a variable, a symbol.. What is that darn thing??:

add_column :zombies, :rotting, :boolean, default: false

Here is another example:

Why age not :age (with a colon)? WHY IS make_rotting CALLED WITH A ” : ” BEFORE IT??

 class Zombie < ActiveRecord::Base
       before_save :make_rotting

   def make_rotting
      if age > 20
         self.rotting = true
      end
    end
 end

I am a Java guy, yes java is verbose but at-least its consistent I feel like going back 🙁

Answer 1

first of all there are different type of variable:

1.Local variable

foobar

2.Instance variable

@foobar

3.Class variable

@@foobar

4.Global variable

$foobar

You can simply differentiate among them by the way they are used.

Now if talk about property of a model,can declare as

property :foobar, :type => FIXNUM

Now validate and validates both are different

validates :foobar ,:numerically => {:greater_than_or_equal_to => 0}

where validates is use to validate properties.

validate :method_name

where validate is to validate some method