I needed some methods to return true/false if a attribute had a value. So, for example, we have a date attribute #invited_on and I want an #invited? method to return true if the date is present.

There are a few dates for which I need this.

My first attempt was to use define_method to dynamically create the methods:

%w(invited_on selected_on confirmed_on ready).each do |attr|
  define_method attr.gsub('_on', '') + '?' do
    send(attr).present?
  end
end

Someone can figure out what it does, but it isn’t “at a glance” readable.

I had to google define_method to check how to use it.

Instead I could have just written out the methods:

def invited?;   !!invited_on;   end
def selected?;  !!selected_on;  end
def confirmed?; !!confirmed_on; end
def ready?;     !!ready_on;     end

Readable at a glance.

If I was to add further dates there would be a temptaion to DRY it up with a bit of meta programming like the original use of define_method, but I might argue that being readable and explicit is preferable.