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

Learning about the importance of method visibility

While it is easy to develop code in Ruby without worrying about method visibility, neglecting to use method visibility wisely tends to result in more difficult long-term maintenance. If you never use one of Ruby's method visibility methods when developing, all the methods you define are public methods. When an object has a public method, it signals to the users of the object that the method is part of the object's supported interface, which, in general, should only change in a major update to the library containing the method. When a method is not public, it signals to the users of the object that the method is an implementation detail, and subject to change at any time.

Whether a method is a supported interface (public method) or an implementation detail (protected or private method) is critical to the long-term maintenance of a library. In general, the larger the supported interface for an object, the more difficult...