Clear data-model layer in Django MVC

Question

I have a Django model User

class Notification(TimeStampedModel):
    user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, verbose_name=_('user'),
                             related_name='notifications')
    viewed = models.BooleanField(verbose_name=_('has viewed'), default=False)

    def make_viewed(self):
            if self.viewed:
                return
            self.viewed = True
            User.objects.filter(id=self.user.id).update(not_viewed_notifications=F('not_viewed_notifications') - Value(1))
            self.save()

So I think that order methods in model is bad idea and actually it's anti-pattern, so next one solution was like this:

class Notification(TimeStampedModel):
    user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, verbose_name=_('user'),
                             related_name='notifications')
    _viewed = models.BooleanField(verbose_name=_('has viewed'), default=False)

    @property
    def viewed(self):
        return self._viewed

    @viewed.setter
    def viewed(self, value):
        if self._viewed:
            return

        self._viewed = True
        self.user.not_viewed_notifications = F('not_viewed_notifications') - Value(1)
        self.user.save(commit=False)
        self.save()

It looks better, but we have a couple of problems:

1) Model have methods yet
2) Property care side-effect, it doesn't obviously
3) That action require access to instance, so we can't move it to custom field.

What are you thinking about?

Answer 1

I would go with a third approach so you don't have to manually update your User model:

class Notification(TimeStampedModel):
    user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, verbose_name=_('user'),
                             related_name='notifications')
    viewed = models.BooleanField(verbose_name=_('has viewed'), default=False)

from django.contrib.auth.models import User as DjangoUser

class User(DjangoUser):
     @property
     def not_viewed_notifications(self):
         return self.notifications.filter(viewed=False).count()

This is twofold:

1. You don't need special logic in Notification and handle it in your view very simply (you can also have your users "unsee" some notifications);
2. You can never be out-of-sync between the number of not seen notifications for a user and the state of the notifications for said user.

This approach also have the advantage of not requiring anything from the selected User model (settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL). If using the proposed one, you will have access to the "not viewed" count from the property, if using the base User model from Django (or any other, for that matter), nothing will break and you'll still have access to the reverse relationship. Whereas, in your current implementation, you'll get into troubles when trying to access a non-existent not_viewed_notifications.