Various notes, links, and information about the Ruby programming language (wikipedia).

Guides and Tutorial

• Pragmatic Programmers, first edition
  • this is a freely available version, which covers Ruby 1.6
  • the Pragmatic Bookshelf has upto date Ruby books on sale
• Learning Ruby the Hardway
• Ruby on Rails Guides
• Rails Tutorial, from Michael Hartl

Feature Flags

Feature flags can be used to enable and disable code dynamically. This makes it easier to do Continuous Deployment since a new feature can be enabled in a limited manner.

There are a variety of gems which implement features flags in various ways:

• https://github.com/jamesgolick/rollout
• https://github.com/pda/flip
• https://github.com/pandurang90/feature_flags
• https://github.com/gmontard/helioth
• https://github.com/ckdake/setler
• https://github.com/MongoHQ/mongoid-feature-flags
• https://github.com/grillpanda/dolphin
• https://github.com/qype/feature_flipper

Sources and Discussion

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4995556/ruby-feature-switches-feature-flippers
• http://www.stakelon.com/2012/01/simple-feature-flags-for-rails-mongoid/

Invariants and Assertions

Software Assertions are statements in a routine which should always be true. There statements may or may not be disabled in production.

A simple version of this could be implemented just by raising exceptions. However there are gems which allow for better control and make the difference between exceptions and assertions more clear.

• https://github.com/pithyless/invariant
• https://github.com/jorgemanrubia/solid_assert

Building Gems

Guidelines for building/maintaining gem projects

• manage with bundler
• choose a license
  • GPL
  • MIT
• setup support services and add badges to README
  • RubyGems (released version)
  • CodeClimate (code quality and test coverage)
  • TravisCI (continuous integration)
  • InchCI (documentation quality)
• gems to use by default:
  • thor for CLI
  • excon for HTTP client
  • rspec and simplecov for unit testing
  • cucumber for documentation and integration tests
  • rubocop for Ruby static analysis
  • capybara for web browser testing
  • webmock
  • fakefs
  • faker
  • MulitJson + oj
  • bundler-audit
  • license_finder
  • yardoc
• sign the published gems
• publish the project code and related information
  • Github
  • GitLab
  • Ruby Gems
  • Ruby Toolbox
  • OpenHub
  • Ruby LibHunt
  • rubydoc
  • CucumberPro
• code of conduct
• changelog
• README
  • include an "Elsewhere" section which includes links to all the profiles, and places which this project can be found. Including its homepage and git repository
  • if appropriate, include an "Alternates" or "Similar Projects" section which describes other projects. This section can also describe the differences between projects, and aid user in choosing what to use
• contribution guidelines

When setting up TravisCI and CodeClimate, for a gem supporting Ruby 2.0 and up, the following .travis.yml can be used:

language: ruby
os:
- linux
- osx
sudo: false
rvm:
  - 2.0
  - 2.1
  - 2.2
  - 2.3
  - 2.4
  - 2.5
  - ruby-head
matrix:
  allow_failures:
    - rvm: ruby-head
    - rvm: 2.0
      os: osx
    - rvm: 2.4
      os: osx
after_success:
  - bundle exec codeclimate-test-reporter

You will also need to add the CODECLIMATE_REPO_TOKEN to the TravisCI environment variables, getting the value from the Code Climate repository Settings > Test Coverage.

Deprecating a project

Once a gem is no-longer maintained, it should be clearly marked as such. Depending upon where the repository is hosted you should set as many of these points as possible.

• update the title in the README.md to

# :no_entry: DEPRECATED project name

• add the tags
  • unmaintained
  • deprecated
  • outdated
• mark the repository as archived

Reference

• shields.io a service for generating more README shields
• https://philna.sh/blog/2017/07/12/two-tests-you-should-run-against-your-ruby-project-now/
• How I Start - Let's Build a Gem Together! (Book Edition) by Steve Klabnik
• Standard way of marking a github organization or repository as deprecated?
• GemCheck
• there are some othe tools which automate similar checklist stuff
  • https://github.com/svenfuchs/gem-release
  • https://github.com/bkuhlmann/gemsmith

Ruby Blog Entires

• OPTIONS HTTP Method in Ruby on Rails

Finally, "Is Ruby Dead?"

A questions which seems to be continuously asked, but as Ruby continues to be a great language to write in, and pretty alive I think the answer a solid no.

There is also a website which answers the question Is Ruby Dead? And their answer is also NO.

But rubyisdead.science has graphs, fake quotes and "science". (And a tongue firmly planted in check.)