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

Preface

The purpose of this book is to teach useful principles for intermediate to advanced Ruby programmers to follow. The focus is not generally on how to implement solutions, but on different implementation approaches, the trade-offs between them, and why some approaches are better in certain situations. While the main focus of the book is teaching principles, in some cases this book also teaches advanced Ruby programming techniques.

This book starts by teaching some fundamental principles, such as how best to use the core classes, when and how best to use each variable type, and how best to use the different types of method arguments. After building on the fundamental principles, the book teaches principles for better library design, such as how best to design extensible plugin systems, trade-offs when using metaprogramming and DSLs, and how best to approach testing, refactoring, and optimization. This book concludes with a few small chapters that are focused on principles specific to web programming in Ruby, with a separate chapter each on database design, application design, and web application security.