Is it wrong to not implement all REST actions in Rails controller?

Question

Let's say I have a SessionsController, which controls user login and logout, but the only actions I really need are new (for displaying login form), create (for authentication and login) and destroy for logging out the user.

Is there any problem if I just have these three actions in my controller, or do I have to implement them all to make it correctly RESTful?

And second little question. Some people say that scaffolding is bad, and that one should write code by hand, but I find it pretty useful and time saving.

Is it OK to use scaffolding, or is it evil that should be avoided and why?

Answer 1

It is definitely okay to only create the RESTful actions which you want to support for that resource. You do not have to define all 7 actions. In fact, the majority of my controllers do not use all 7 actions.

Is it OK to use scaffolding, or is it evil that should be avoided and why?

The built-in Rails scaffolding is mainly designed to help get off the ground when beginning. I personally don't use it for everyday development for a few reasons.

• it generates a CSS and layout file when I want to use the existing application one
• it generates all controller actions (like I said I usually don't want all of them)
• it creates an XML format for every action which I almost never want
• it does not put the form in a partial when I need both "edit" and "new" actions
• I sometimes use a different testing library (such as Shoulda or RSpec)

However, I am a fan of scaffolding for speeding up development. This is why I created the nifty_scaffold generator which I use almost all the time. It does not have the problems mentioned above.