thrillwiki_django_no_react/memory-bank/decisions/ride_count_field.md

Ride Count Field Implementation

Context

While implementing park views, we encountered an error where a ride_count annotation conflicted with an existing model field of the same name. This raised a question about how to handle real-time ride counts versus stored counts.

Decision

We decided to use both approaches but with distinct names:

1. Model Field (ride_count):

   • Kept the original field for backward compatibility
   • Used in test fixtures and filtering system
   • Can serve as a cached/denormalized value

2. Annotation (current_ride_count):

   • Added new annotation with a distinct name
   • Provides real-time count of rides
   • Used in templates for display purposes

This approach allows us to:

• Maintain existing functionality in tests and filters
• Show accurate, real-time counts in the UI
• Avoid name conflicts between fields and annotations

Implementation

• Kept the ride_count IntegerField in the Park model
• Added current_ride_count = Count('rides', distinct=True) annotation in views
• Updated templates to use current_ride_count for display

Future Considerations

We might want to:

1. Add a periodic task to sync the stored ride_count with the computed value
2. Consider deprecating the stored field if it's not needed for performance
3. Add validation to ensure the stored count stays in sync with reality

Related Files

• parks/models.py
• parks/views.py
• parks/templates/parks/partials/park_list_item.html
• parks/tests/test_filters.py