Ruby Best Practices

Conclusions

Hopefully these examples have shown the diversity you can come to expect from Ruby’s standard library. What you have probably noticed by now is that there really is a lot there—so much so that it might be a little overwhelming at first. Another observation you may have made is that there seems to be little consistency in interface between the libraries. This is because many were written by different people at different stages in Ruby’s evolution.

However, assuming that you can tolerate the occasional wart, a solid working knowledge of what is available in Ruby’s standard libraries is a key part of becoming a masterful Rubyist. It goes beyond simply knowing about and using these tools, though. Many of the libraries discussed here are written in pure Ruby, which means that you can actually learn a lot by grabbing a copy of Ruby’s source and reading through their implementations. I know I’ve learned a lot in this manner, so I wholeheartedly recommend it as a way to test and polish your Ruby chops.