RubySeeds: core_ext done right.

In the core of apple, there are apple seeds. In your core_ext.rb should be RubySeeds.

It is not unusual for Ruby developers to have own and favourite set of ruby core classes extensions (typically lying somewhere in project tree in core_ext.rb), dragged from project to project, growing, becoming cluttered yet beloved.

Other developers rely on some external thing like ActiveSupport or Ruby Facets to extend their core classes. And if it is not there, its nowhere.

RubySeeds is different.

So, what is RubySeeds?

RubySeeds is not a gem. On my strong opinion, there is no good in mixing together everything somebody can need in core classes. The same way, there's no good to make a small gem of each useful idea.

RubySeeds is just an easily navigable list of code snippets with clean and simple explanations. Those snippets are thought to be just droppable in your projects lib/core_ext.rb (with possible renamings and improvements).

Snippets selected for RubySeeds posess those common qualities:

• targeting shorter, yet clean code (not "clever" or "magic");
• as small dependencies between snippets as possible;
• as clean method names as possible;
• snippets' code itself should be small and easily verifieble "by eyes" (yet tested);
• strong emphasis on "more chainable code", method chaining is cool;
• strong emphasis on data processing with Ruby, so most of RubySeeds do shorten some container transformations.

Usage

There's one huge, yet (supposedly) easily-navigable page with all seeds described: RubySeeds.md. (In future will be separate page with collapsible code.)

You just browse it, select what you like, expand Code section and copy-paste it into your core_ext.rb or wherever you want.

Refinements: highly recommended approach

Since version 2.0, Ruby has refinements which allows core (and other) classes to be extended not globally, but in context of some module.

Before refinements:

# in core_ext.rb
class Hash
  def symbolize_keys
    # ...
  end
end

# everywhere in code
require 'core_ext'
# now ANYWHERE Hash#symbolize_keys refers to your implementation... unless
# you require something else, redefining it.

With refinements:

# in core_ext.rb
module HashSymbolize
  refine Hash do
    def symbolize_keys
      # ...
    end
  end
end

# in some concrete place:
require 'core_ext'
class MyClass
  using HashSymbolize
  # now Hash#symbolize_keys can be used inside your class only
end

On "monkey-patching is bad" rant

Somebody can say that adding functionality to core classess (even through refinements) is a bad practice.

It may be (or maybe not) true for large enterprise-y systems with tens of juniors fixing your code here and there and some contractor just running through it wildly...

Yet for many small-to-medium data-processing tasks you just want to be comfortable with code, having it clean and looking like chain of data processing calls. So, you just want load(something).do_this.and_that.and_shit instead of multiple My::Deeply::Nested::Namespace.very_concrete_processing_method_name(data) calls. And you have it.

Also, take a look at Hal Fultons post about "monkey patching".

And here is my own latest post on the topic.

On possible name confusion

There was rubyseeds organization on github, something about learning Ruby, I guess?..

Current project have no relation to this group, and, as the site seems to be dead, and I've already thinked out and loved the name when I found the organization, I allowed myself to keep the name.

Other nice things to say

If you are like me (= understand, while we sometimes add features to our beloved language to make code clear and rational), you may like also those libraries:

• backports or polyfill to have all the goodness of new Ruby versions in older ones;
• hashie, which is the most popular way of treating hashes as a light-weight objects, as well as set of really useful Hash extensions;
• naught -- a superior Ruby NullObject pattern implementation, with lot of options;
• time_math2 (shameless self-promotion) -- the small and clean library dealing with everyday Time tasks like "next day", "prev day", "todays midnight", "list of time periods of arbitrary length" and so on (and NO core_ext-ing this time! compatible with everything).

Contributing

Just usual fork-change-push-make pull request process. Note (if you haven't already), that RubySeeds is highly opionated set of extensions, so, there's no guarantee that pull requests with new features will be accepted.

NB: never try to update RubySeeds.md file -- it is built automatically from code in lib/**/*.rb, with rake build.

License

Those are code snippets barely dozen lines length. Let's say "public domain", ok?