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

Summary

In this chapter, you learned that Ruby doesn't have class methods – it only has instance methods on singleton classes. You learned that the length of a method name should be proportional to the inverse of the frequency of calling the method. You then learned about Ruby's many types of arguments, such as positional arguments, keyword arguments, and block arguments, and when it is best to use each. You also learned about method visibility and how important it is for backward compatibility. Finally, you learned how to implement method delegation in Ruby. With the knowledge you've gained, you'll be able to design better methods, which will make the libraries and applications you write easier to use and maintain.

In the next chapter, you'll learn how best to handle errors and other exceptional situations in your Ruby code.