The Digital Press

A Ruby developer shares a step-by-step approach to building a minimal decorator pattern from scratch to add view-related methods, eventually simplifying it with Ruby’s built-in SimpleDelegator.

Why it matters: Decorators help separate view logic from models, keeping code organized and maintainable in Rails apps.

The big picture: The author evolves from manual method forwarding with method_missing to leveraging standard Ruby delegation for cleaner, more reliable decorators.

The other side: Commenters argue decorators can obscure logic, introduce fragile dependencies, and suggest simpler view helpers or direct inline logic instead.

Commenters say: They caution against overusing decorators, highlight performance and clarity issues with method_missing, and advocate idiomatic Rails alternatives like view helpers.