Book Image

Polished Ruby Programming

By : Jeremy Evans
Book Image

Polished Ruby Programming

By: Jeremy Evans

Overview of this book

Anyone striving to become an expert Ruby programmer needs to be able to write maintainable applications. Polished Ruby Programming will help you get better at designing scalable and robust Ruby programs, so that no matter how big the codebase grows, maintaining it will be a breeze. This book takes you on a journey through implementation approaches for many common programming situations, the trade-offs inherent in each approach, and why you may choose to use different approaches in different situations. You'll start by refreshing Ruby fundamentals, such as correctly using core classes, class and method design, variable usage, error handling, and code formatting. Then you'll move on to higher-level programming principles, such as library design, use of metaprogramming and domain-specific languages, and refactoring. Finally, you'll learn principles specific to web application development, such as how to choose a database and web framework, and how to use advanced security features. By the end of this Ruby programming book, you’ll be a well rounded web developer with a deep understanding of Ruby. While most code examples and principles discussed in the book apply to all Ruby versions, some examples and principles are specific to Ruby 3.0, the latest release at the time of publication.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
1
Section 1: Fundamental Ruby Programming Principles
8
Section 2: Ruby Library Programming Principles
17
Section 3: Ruby Web Programming Principles

Chapter 12: Handling Change

As most libraries change over time, refactoring is an important tool during library development. Even in the best-written libraries, external requirement changes generally force changes in order for the library to continue to be useful. Some of these requirement changes can come from changes in Ruby itself.

In this chapter, you'll learn about many different aspects of refactoring. You'll learn how to answer important refactoring questions, such as why you should refactor, when you should refactor, and how best to go about refactoring.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

  • Considering reasons to refactor
  • Learning about the refactoring process
  • Implementing the most common Ruby refactoring techniques
  • Refactoring to add features
  • Removing features properly

By the end of this chapter, you'll understand better not just how to refactor, but why refactoring may or may not be a good idea for your library...