My Rails app is starting to need complicated queries. Should I just start using raw SQL queries? What is the trend in the Rails community?
Update:
I do not have written queries right now, I wanted to ask this question before I start. But here is an example of what I want to do:
I have books which have categories. I want to say-
Give me all books that were:
-created_at (added to store) between date1 and date2
-updated_at before date3
-joined with books that exist in shopping carts right now
I haven't written the query yet but I think the rails version will be something like this:
books_to_consider = Book.find(:all,
:conditions => "created_at <= '#{date2}' AND created_at >= '#{date1}' AND updated_at <= '#{date3}'",
:joins => "as b inner join carts as c on c.book_id = b.id")
I am not saying ActiveRecord can't handle this query, but is it more accepted to go with raw SQL for readability (or maybe there are other limitations I don't know of yet)?