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

Focusing on the user experience

The most important aspect when designing a Ruby library is to understand how the user will be using it, and trying to simplify that usage as much as possible. Making your library easy to use actually starts even before the user uses the library. It starts when the user first hears about the library and wants to learn more about it. In order to learn about the library, the first thing they'll probably do is search for it using the library name.

Library naming

It may be unfortunate, but one of the most important aspects of your library is its name. Ideally, the name should be short and easy to pronounce and spell, not be used by any other Ruby library, and ideally not be used in other remotely popular technology. If your library name is long or difficult to spell, users may give up looking for it even before they try it.

If your library name is used by another Ruby library, you won't have any issues creating a repository, but when the...