Ruby-Best Practices for Beginners
Published: 2023-02-18 16:48:18

Ruby is a popular programming language known and designed for simplicity and readability. The creator of ruby, Yukihiro Matsumoto, said he designed ruby to be a language for developers to love using. Ruby is commonly used for web development, most commonly on the server side as well as for building command-line interfaces and automation scripts. To ensure that your Ruby code is easy to read and maintain, it is important to follow best practices for writing clean code. In this blog, I will discuss some of the best practices for writing clean and maintainable Ruby code, including variable naming conventions, code formatting, and error handling.

## variable_naming

One of the key aspects of writing clean Ruby code is using consistent and descriptive variable naming conventions. When naming variables, it is important to use descriptive names that accurately convey the purpose of the variable. This not only makes it easier for others to understand your code, but it also helps you to remember what the variable is for when you come back to it later. For example, if you have a variable that represents a user's name, you could name it "user_name" or "name" instead of something less descriptive, like "n" or "x". Additionally, it is important to use consistent naming conventions throughout your codebase. In Ruby, the convention is to use snake_case for variable names, with all lowercase letters and underscores between words. Ruby will often throw an error if camelCase or PascalCase is used. By following these naming conventions, your code will be more readable and thus easier to maintain.

## Keeping with the flow/formatting

Another important part of writing code in Ruby is formatting your code consistently. Correct formatting will make your code easier to read and understand, particularly for other developers who may be reviewing your code. In Ruby, indentation is particularly important for readability, as it helps show your code's structure. It is recommended to use two spaces for indentation in Ruby, rather than tabs, to ensure consistency across different editors and platforms. Additionally, it is important to use blank lines to separate logical blocks of code, such as methods or loops. This makes it easier to visually distinguish different parts of your code and improves readability.

## Error handling

Error handling is yet another critical aspect of writing clean and maintainable Ruby code. An error in your code can be frustrating for users and difficult for developers to debug. To prevent errors from occurring in the first place, it is important to validate and test user input and handle unexpected conditions. For example, if your code expects a certain format of input, you should validate the input to ensure that it is in the correct format before attempting to process it. Additionally, it is important to provide meaningful error messages that help users and developers understand what went wrong and how to fix it. When an error does occur, it is important to handle it gracefully and recover from it as best as possible. This can involve logging the error, notifying the user of the error, or attempting to retry the operation. The most common way to handle errors and test user inputs is thorough testing through a console. In ruby, the most common debugging consoles are the Pry and Rake consoles, in ruby on rails, the rails console is a tool many developers will use to decipher the sometimes tedious or misleading errors that can be thrown. Getting comfortable with testing and consoles is one of the most important skills to have as a developer.

## Best practices and final notes

In addition to these best practices, there are several other tips for writing clean and maintainable Ruby code. First, a crucial step is to keep your code DRY, that is, Don't Repeat Yourself, by avoiding duplicate code as well as keeping your code modular and reusable. This makes your code easier to read and reduces the likelihood of errors. Additionally, it is important to write tests for your code to ensure that it works as intended and to catch errors before they make it to production. This is commonly done by writing your own tests with a tool called rspec. Testing will make it easier to maintain and reuse your code over time, as you can make changes to the code and know that it will still work as expected. 

Lastly, it is important to document your code to make it easier for other developers to understand what your code does and how to use it. In Ruby, you can use comments to provide inline documentation for your code, such as explaining the purpose of a particular method or why a certain approach was chosen. Additionally, you can use README files to provide more detailed documentation for your codebase; adding these is not necessary but it can help others to understand the goal or purpose of the code you're writing.

In conclusion, writing clean and maintainable Ruby code is essential for ensuring that your code is easy to read, understand, and maintain over the long term for the sake of yourself, other developers, and most importantly, your project.