Antipattern: Non-RESTful Actions

The smell

• member do; post :publish; post :archive; post :feature; end and similar in routes.rb
• Controllers with 8+ public actions, most of them custom verbs
• Pairs of verbs that are obviously create/destroy: publish/unpublish, archive/unarchive, feature/unfeature
• URLs that read RPC-ish (POST /posts/:id/publish)

Why it hurts

• No conventions to lean on — every action is bespoke
• Authorization, redirects, and templates duplicate
• Form objects, params, and responses don't compose
• Discoverability suffers; URL shape gives no hint about behavior

The fix

• Each verb is a new resource. Canonical DHH move
• publish/unpublish → resource :publication, only: [:create, :destroy]
• The new resource often is a real record (see "State as Records" in rails-models); even when it isn't, the routing convention pays off
• Controllers stay short and RESTful; URLs become POST /posts/42/publication