A little #to_s can do wonder in DRY-ing up your views

Do you do this every day?

<h1>Show - Blog <%= @blog.name %></h1>
<dl>
  <dt>Author:</dt>
  <dd><%= @blog.author.full_name %></dd>
</dl>

<ul>
  <% for comment in @blog.comments do %>
    <li>Posted by <%= comment.created_by.full_name %>: <%= comment.description %></li>
  <% end %>
</ul>

I am lazy. Having to spell out in my views what field to render for every object when it is that field 90% of the time in my application gives me too much typing. When I render a @comment, you bet I want its description field most of the time; similarly, when I render a @user, you bet I want his/her full_name.

Don't forget all these erb tags at the end of day only render #to_s anyways, so you can just define your default field there to get rid of some typing as well:

class Blog < ActiveRecord::Base
  def to_s
    name
  end
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  def to_s
    first_name + ' ' + last_name
  end
end

class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
  def to_s
    description
  end
end

Now, let's see how our view looks, 90% of the time:

<h1>Show - Blog <%= @blog %></h1>
<dl>
  <dt>Author:</dt>
  <dd><%= @blog.author %></dd>
</dl>

<ul>
  <% for comment in @blog.comments do %>
    <li>Posted by <%= comment.created_by %>: <%= comment %></li>
  <% end %>
</ul>

See, it's a lot DRY-er and less verbose.

You will also notice that by doing this I eliminated a need to use a possible Object#try(:method) case:

<dd><%= @blog.author.try(:full_name) %></dd>

is no longer necessary, because a nil @blog.author will automatically give an empty string on the view. The end result is we all get to be lazier every day :-)