I don't understand. If you create an empty model and you have a validate function, the validate function still runs and you aren't able to create the model.

Also, I don't fully understand the workflow for a "new" form. If the form needs to handle both a "new" model with no attributes (invalid state) and an existing model for update, how does one go about that? (I'm currently using a mock for the new state.)

I realize this are two different issues, but they are somewhat related to the problem of creating a model with no attributes, which is a model in an initially invalid state.