Post

ecto queries in liveviews and controllers? discuss. 🍿 #ElixirLang #phoenix #code

My thinking on this one has evolved after working on some medium to large-scale code repos. When I started writing code professionally, I had absorbed some of the best practices common in MVC frameworks, DDD, and other programming patterns. btw, thread length != rage 😜

In my first coding gigs, I experienced first-hand the impact of poorly organized code. SQL queries were scattered throughout template code, everything was mutable, and debugging was painfully tedious. I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

While I can imagine some applications that have identical queries used across multiple call sites, this hasn't been my experience. Instead, I've seen hastily added functions in contexts which serve a single call site elsewhere in the codebase. These functions often have hilariously long names.

This reminds me of the bad old days of CSS before utility classes came along. Each time a new feature is requested, someone has to look for existing code that serves the purpose. This becomes less practical over time, and devs are often nervous about breaking things, so we *just* add to the pile.

Really interesting comparison. Do you see an overlap between the ways the SPA world tackles CSS issues and this ecto query question? Abstractly they feel a little similar to me. In addition to CSS I also often find SPA data queries living close to calling UI component code with some utility helpers.

Years ago, I heard a hot take on a podcast that stuck with me and I've been taking it more seriously in the past few months. Something along the lines of "just write the query in the controller/LV and move on with your life." IIRC, this was a classic Chris Keathley hot take.