One more bug in the first code snippet is their use of find_by_id means that @album could be nil, causing an error when they attempt to edit it. Most people would use @album.find and then catch the error/show a 404. I realize these guys are in college, but they really should have (a) brought people's expectations in line with their abilities and (b) reached out to experienced developers to help them out. Intridea pro…
Totally, their lives would be so much better now if they had just asked 2-3 experienced Rails developers to review their work before releasing it like this. Actually, the fact that they didn't think to do that kind of illustrates a problem.
I'm inclined to think it was neither and they just didn't think anyone would notice. It happens.
[1] http://www.joindiaspora.com/2010/07/01/one-month-in.html