name.rb

  def friendly_name(user)

    temp_name = if user.first_name.blank? && user.last_name.blank?
                  user.email
                elsif user.first_name.blank?
                  user.last_name
                elsif user.last_name.blank?
                  user.first_name
                else
                  "#{user.first_name} #{user.last_name}"
                end

    "#{temp_name}'s"
  
  end

I'd instead make the possessive part a separate method and favor early returning, like this:

return user.email if user.first_name.blank? && user.last_name.blank?
return user.last_name if user.first_name.blank?
return user.first_name if user.last_name.blank?
"#{user.first_name} #{user.last_name}"

You could probably make this better with more composition...

def full_name
   "#{first_name} #{last_name}".trim
end

def friendly_name
   return full_name unless full_name.blank?
   email
end

You can boil this down into two conditional statements and then format your response. If first and last names are blank, assign temp name to email, otherwise "#{user.first_name} #{user.last_name}". To take into account nil first or last names, strip temp_name before returning ("#{temp_name.strip}'s".

To piggyback on @subdigital's point, and you may have it already set up this way outside the gist, it probably belongs on your user model versus in a helper.

Thanks for the tips, especially on full_name. I think that will clean things up quite a bit.

@chris - I think full_name belongs on the model. But the friendly (possessive) part is just for the benefit of the user visiting the site, so it is probably better off in the helper. Although now that i write this it is used in one spot and can probably just be inlined in the view.

Thanks again for the tips.

@chris - nevermind, I get what you meant about them both being on the model. Bah...consider it committed. :)