ActiveRitalin
=============



Rails find_by_sql is the devil. Ninety nine percent of the time find_by_sql is unnecessary and problematic, but its sooo seductive. I cant even begin to count the ways that find_by_sql can cause trouble, but heres a few:

    * Plugins like acts_as_paranoid rely on developers *not* using the back door to get around the dynamic conditions to exclude deleted rows.
    * There quite a few gotchas, ie: SELECT * FROM users JOIN another_table  wont work because ActiveRecord will use the last ID field, not the first.
    * Logic hidden in find_by_sql is not reusable (as compared to a fancy association, etc)
    * It offends my aesthetic sense. We all like to pretend our ORM layer isnt leaky.. dont we?

I remember a time when we had to use find_by_sql when we found a feature was missing from ActiveRecord. I propose that the only remaining legitimate use of ActiveRecord may be to call a stored procedure.

So, keeping with the hyperactivity theme, I suggest that we all take some ActiveRitalin: A plugin for Rails that tells ActiveRecord to chill out, and causes developers to sit and think a bit before proceeding.

ActiveRitalin makes find_by_sql private and introduces find_by_sql_with_excuse that warns upon each use. The implementation is very simple:

module ActiveRitalin
  def self.append_features(klass)
    super

    klass.class_eval %(
      def self.find_by_sql_with_excuse(excuse, sql)
        RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER.warn("Find By Sql called with excuse: " + excuse )
        find_by_sql(sql)
      end

      class << self
        private :find_by_sql
      end
    )
  end
end

To use, from your rails applications root dir:

script/plugin install git://github.com/lukegalea/activeritalin.git

Think you need find_by_sql? Ask yourself the following questions:

    * Can I just use :include, :select, :join, :conditions or some combination of the above?
    * Should this be an association? (perhaps with :conditions and :select on it? Maybe :readonly?)


Copyright (c) 2008 Luke Galea, released under the MIT license