Rails Controller Inheritance vs. Concerns and Mixins

Question

I have a lot of similar resources in my Rails application, and I have currently DRY'd up the code using controller inheritance. I see that there is a directory called concerns under the controller folder, where I could potentially write similar concerns (such as archiving, activate/deactivate etc.) I can probably write mixins too.

Is there a preferred approach to DRY up the controller code? Is there any downside in using inheritance, or are there any advantages using other techniques?

Answer 1

Is there a preferred approach to DRY up the controller code?

In my experience, it depends on what you want the code to do. I've only used concerns for simple controller-independent methods, such as before_action or something

I would use inheritance if your controller's methods are able to rely on a super class or something. My experience so far has lead me to use inherited_resources - a DRY way to create controller inheritance