Constraints assist understanding
The hardest thing for a new developer on a project to wrap his head around is not the code. For the most part, ruby code stays the same across projects. My controllers look like your controllers, my models look like your models. What defines an application is not the code, but the domain. The business concepts, and how they are translated into code, can take weeks or months to understand cleanly. Modelling your domain in a way that it is easily understood is an important principle to speed up this learning process.
In an application I am looking at there is an email field in the user model. It is defined as a string that allows null values. This is confusing. I need to figure in what circumstances a null value makes sense (can they choose to withhold that piece of information? Is there a case where a new column I am adding should be null?), which is extra information I need to locate and process before I can understand the code. There is a validates_presence_of declaration on the attribute, but production data has some null values. Two parts of the application are telling me two contradicting stories about the domain.
Further, when I am tracking down a bug in the application, eliminating the possibility that a column could be null is an extra step I need to take. The data model is harder to reason about because there are more possible states than strictly necessary.
Allowing a null value in a column creates another piece of information that a developer has to process. It creates an extra question that needs to be answered when reading the code: in what circumstances is a null value appropriate? Multiply this problem out to multiple columns (and factor in other sub-optimal modeling techniques not covered here), and the time to understanding quickly grows out of hand.
Adding not-null constraints on your database is a quick and cheap way to bring your data model inline with the code that sits on top of it. In addition to cutting lines of code, cut out extraneous information from your data model. For little cost, constraints simplify your application conceptually and allow your data to be reasoned about more efficiently.
I talk about this sort of thing in my “Your Database Is Your Friend” training sessions. They are happening throughout the US and UK in the coming months. One is likely coming to a city near you. Head on over to www.dbisyourfriend.com for more information and free screencasts
