In Jamis Buck's and Michael Koziarski's The Rails Way keynote this morning, they talked about improving code as they do on the Rails Way blog. For one snippet, they changed this:

class SomeModel
  def before_save
    if created_at == Time.now.to_date.to_time
      created_at = Time.now
    end
  end
end

into this:

class SomeModel
  before_save :make_created_now_if_created_today
  def make_created_now_if_created_today
    if created_at = Time.now.beginning_of_day
      created_at = Time.now
    end
  end
end

One key point was the readability that ActiveSupport provides. Time.now.beginning_of_day shows much more intent than Time.now.to_date.to_time.

The method name make_created_now_if_created_today caught my attention. Many developers (myself included) would have used something less descriptive. Maybe update_created_at or something worse like adjust_time. So what is an easy way to know the method is well named? Write a test for it. Here are the potential test names:

def test_adjust_time_makes_created_now_if_created_today
def test_update_created_at_makes_created_now_if_created_today
def test_make_created_now_if_created_today_makes_created_now_if_created_today

When you're trying to describe what the method should do and it matches the name of the method, that's a good thing.