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 14: Optimizing Your Library

Optimization is often not needed in Ruby, but when it is needed, it should be approached in a principled manner, lest you waste time optimizing the wrong code. Nobody likes slow code, but there is a reason that premature optimization is considered the root of all evil.

In this chapter, you'll learn the importance of profiling in order to decide what to optimize, how the best optimization is deleting code or delaying the execution of code, and what to do when it looks like all parts of your application are slow.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

  • Understanding that you probably don't need to optimize code
  • Profiling first, optimizing second
  • Understanding that no code is faster than no code
  • Handling code where everything is slow

By the end of this chapter, you'll have a better understanding of when and how to optimize your application.