different type of notifications [Rails 4]

Question

I am developing a feeds application with ruby on rails, and I want to show in the main page of the application some courses activities managing by the users.

Basically, the idea is a user can create a course, other users can follow the course and comment inside that event, later in the future, I Want that it will be more complex.

My solution is having a notifications table which manage all this. Above it shows the table which will have a feed type (1. create course, 2. pay the course, 3. comment into this group, 4. course deleted, 5. share course... and could be more). user_id field refiere to the user who should see the notification, message_id not nil only when the notification consist in add a comment.

<<Table>>
Feed
----------------
+ id : integer (Pk)
+ created_at : date_time
+ notification_type : string
+ text : text
+ course_id : integer (Fk)
+ user_id : integer (Fk)
+ comment_id : integer (Fk)

I am wondering if that would be the best implementation of this problem if I Want to make it more complex in the future. Please any feedback is welcome!

Thank you!

Answer 1

You're implementing the observer patter for this application. Based on your requirements, it looks like a fine implementation.

Here are some resources about this pattern.

http://www.sitepoint.com/design-patterns-in-ruby-observer-singleton/

Implementing Observer Pattern for my Rails App