class Story < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_collectible

named_scope :uncompleted, :conditions => {:complete => false}
end

I think < got interpreted as a tag.

I also might prefer to put the collection operations on a pluralized class. Something like:

module Stories
def remaining_uncompleted_hours
uncompleted.sum(:hours)
end
end

I played around with some implementation options and the best I could come up with was:

class Story {:complete => false}
end

With a plugin :

module ActsAsCollectible
def self.included(base) # :nodoc:
base.extend ClassMethods
end

module ClassMethods
def acts_as_collectible
# determine the plural using pluralize
# todo: take the name of the module as option
self.extend self.name.pluralize.constantize
end
end
end

So, create Story.remaining_uncompleted_hours and call it through the stories collection.

Here’s how I would do it (with a simplified implementation):

Here’s the test. I’m creating a couple of users to demonstrate that the scoping is working

class UserTest true, :hours => 2
joe.stories.create :complete => false, :hours => 2
joe.stories.create :complete => false, :hours => 2

frank = User.create
frank.stories.create :complete => true, :hours => 2
frank.stories.create :complete => false, :hours => 2
frank.stories.create :complete => false, :hours => 2

################################################
# this is how calls through the attribute look
assert_equal 4, joe.stories.remaining_uncompleted_hours
end
end

Story has a class method named remaining_uncompleted_hours
class Story {:complete => false}

################################################
# here’s where I define the class method.
def Story.remaining_uncompleted_hours
uncompleted.sum(:hours)
end
end

The simplified schema
ActiveRecord::Schema.define(:version => 20081121185349) do

create_table “stories”, :force => true do |t|
t.integer “user_id”
t.boolean “complete”
t.datetime “created_at”
t.datetime “updated_at”
t.integer “hours”
end

create_table “users”, :force => true do |t|
t.datetime “created_at”
t.datetime “updated_at”
end

end

A super-simple user model
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :stories
end

I love refactoring my old code and seeing progress I made.

Only one thing I would change – I would rather not place this kind of modules in initializers. If one of the gems fails initializers won’t be run and you will end up with en error.

Cheers