Service Objects
: Service Objects are a popular software design pattern in the Ruby on Rails community. They are used to extract procedural logic away from models and controllers and into their own objects.Updated: February 26, 2024
Ruby/Rails
: I've always said that if you don't have some serious gripes with a programming language or framework, then you don't know it well enough yet. Over more than a decade of using them, I've found plenty of issues with both Ruby and Rails. That I keep using them either says something about their merits or my character flaws. (It's the former.)Articles
Blog Posts
The Null Object Pattern and Ruby
Object-oriented programmers have a solution to null propagation, the null object pattern, but is it a good fit for Ruby and other dynamic languages?
January 24, 2024
A Printable Diagonal TwixT Board
For fun, I used Phlex to generate a printable board for playing an obscure board game that I used to play more than a decade ago.
January 16, 2024
Don’t assert return types
Have you ever seen a test in Ruby (or any dynamic language) that tested the type of a method? I’ve always hated those tests, but never really explored why.
January 09, 2024
TDD on the Shoulders of Giants
What do we Rubyists stand to learn from Nat Pryce and Steve Freeman's Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by tests? I break down what my team learned from the book about how to make writing tests a more valuable exercise.
December 18, 2023
What if service objects were just Procs?
Service objects, a popular design pattern in the Ruby on Rails community, are analogous to higher-order functions, and we can demonstrate that more clearly by refactoring one into a Proc without changing its API.
August 03, 2023
Adding Parameterized Layouts to phlex-rails
Out of the box, phlex-rails currently doesn't support parameterized layouts. I found a quick way to hack support in.
April 16, 2023
I just learned two interesting Ruby edge-case behaviours
Kevin Newton's explanations of how YARV works alerted me to a couple of edge cases in Ruby that I'd never thought about.
December 07, 2022
Here are my TDD on the Shoulders of Giants talk slides
RubyConf Mini is over and my talk went well. Once the videos are posted, I'll do a quick write up about the talk, but for now here are the slides.
November 19, 2022
There's a trick to using Hash.new
Ruby's Hash class supports default values, but there's an edge case where using this feature produces some unexpected results. Python developers should know what I'm talking about.
April 29, 2020
Recapping the first day of RubyConf 2019
Alistair, Amy and I were in Nashville for RubyConf to hear about what's next for the Ruby community.
November 18, 2019
How to use Hash.new with a block
The default values of Ruby's hashes can be made completely dynamic. Let's look at some dogs (to understand how we can use this feature.)
October 03, 2019
A whole world of Ruby code
Exposing yourself to more code is one of the most important things you can do to improve your development skills.
August 19, 2019