8 tricks and best practices for improving your Ruby code

Software developers sometimes think that productivity means writing code as fast as possible. But true productivity with a programming language comes down to the quality of your code.

Ruby is a unique, versatile language that can be used to build just about anything. Ruby, though simple and easy to learn, requires in-depth knowledge and experience to be used to its full potential. So, today, we’ve compiled our best tips, tricks, and best practices to help you make the most of Ruby.

This guide at a glance:

• Tip 1: Avoid hidden structures
• Tip 2: Avoid while !(not)
• Tip 3: Use loop do over while(true)
• Tip 4: Use Double Pipe Equals ||= for your methods
• Tip 5: Patch the Garbage Collector (GC)
• Tip 6: Use Hash[...] to create a hash from a list of values
• Tip 7: Avoid functions that don’t work well with iterators
• Tip 8: Follow Ruby best practices
• Next steps for your learning

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Tip 1: Avoid hidden structures#

Hidden structures will make your Ruby code hard to maintain in the long run, and it is best to avoid them. Take a look at this code:

What’s the problem here? We are using the array’s index positions to get information for the calculate method. However, it’s hard to tell what information we are gaining, because 0 and 1 are not clearly defined and therefore not too useful.

Instead, we can use constants to assign meaningful information to our values, like this:

We can also avoid hidden Ruby structures by using Struct to represent the data in a meaningful way.

Tip 2: Avoid while !(not)#

The while !(not) loop can be used to test code until a condition is not met. In the example below, the condition is essentially saying “while download is not finished (execute the code block)”.

Clearly, this can lead to some confusion because it isn’t natural to the way we think about negatives and positives. Instead, we can use until, which is essentially like the the negative version of while.

In this revised version, the until condition reads more naturally: “until download is finished (execute the code block)”. This will help make your code more readable and easier to skim.

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Tip 3: Use loop do over while(true)#

The loop do offers much cleaner syntax than the while(true) conditional for many cases. Take a look at the comparison here:

In general, loop do offers cleaner, better syntax when you’re handling with external iterators. Similarly, loop do also allows you to loop through two collections simultaneously, which leads to cleaner, easier Ruby code.

Tip 4: Use Double Pipe Equals ||= for your methods#

Double Pipe Equals is a great way to write concise Ruby code. It is equivalent to the following:

a || a = b 

a ||= b works like a conditional assignment operator, so if a is undefined or false, then it will evaluate b and set a to that result. Or, if a is defined and true, then b will not be evaluated.

This operator is great for creating methods in your classes, especially for calculations.

def total
  @total ||= (1..100000000).to_a.inject(:+)
end

Tip 5: Patch the Garbage Collector (GC)#

Ruby’s Garbage Collector (GC) is known for being slow, especially in versions before 2.1. The algorithm for Ruby’s GC is “mark and-sweep” (the slowest for garbage collectors), and it has to stop the application during garbage collection processes.

To fix this, we can patch it to include customizable GC extensions. This will really help with speed when your Ruby application scales.

You can use tuning variables based on which version of Ruby you use, and many patches are available on GitHub if you don’t want to hard-code them in. Here are three as an example:

• RUBY_GC_HEAP_INIT_SLOTS: initial allocation slots
• RUBY_GC_HEAP_FREE_SLOTS: prepare at least this number of slots after GC, and allocate slots if there aren’t enough.
• RUBY_GC_HEAP_GROWTH_MAX_SLOTS: limit allocation rate to this number of slots.

Tip 6: Use Hash[...] to create a hash from a list of values#

You can easily create a hash from a list in Ruby using Hash[...], for example:

Hash['key1', 'value1', 'key2', 'value2']

# => {"key1"=>"value1", "key2"=>"value2"}

Imagine that we’ve collected data in a tabular format. It is organized with one array representing the column headers and an array of arrays representing the values of our rows.

columns = [ "Name", "city", "employed"]
 
rows = [ 
  [ "Matt",   "Seattle",    true ], 
  [ "Amy",  "Chicago", true], 
  [ "Nice", "Lahore",     false ]
]

The keys for our final hashes will be the column array that holds our column names, and the tabular data is our array of arrays, holding the rows data. We want to create an array of hashes so that each hash key is the column name, and the row is the value.

Tip 7: Avoid functions that don’t work well with iterators#

When working with iterators in Ruby, complexity is important. So, we need to avoid slower methods and find an alternative that offers better performance but leads to the same result.

Notably, the method Date#parse method is known for poor performance. Instead, we should specify an expected date format when parsing our code. For example, say we want to work with the dd/mm/yyyy format:

Date.strptime(date, '%d/%m/%Y')

In terms of type checks, Object#class, Object#kind_of?, and Object#is_a? can lead to poor performance as well when used with loops. Instead, it’s better to write the function calls away from iterators that are frequently called.

Tip 8: Follow Ruby best practices#

Best practices with Ruby help us to write code that is concise and easy to work with down the line. Let’s look at a few that you can implement today.

• When possible, use existing gems instead of writing code from scratch for more optimized code.
• To avoid using for loops, use the each method for a block
• Use ternary operators to write shorter code
• Instead of writing length if statements, use case/when and unless/until/while conditionals
• Use the splat * operator to group inputs into an array when your methods have an unfixed number of inputs. use symbols instead of strings in hashes
• Avoid using comments unless they are necessary. Ideally, your code should be clear enough on its own to not need commenting.
• Use the double bang !! to write methods that determine if a given value exists
• Use an APM during development. This will help you immediately know when something new to your code has caused a drop in performance.
• When writing methods yourself, remember two simple rules: a method should only do one thing, and it needs a clear name that reflects this singular purpose.

Next steps for your learning#

These tips and best practices will help you write more readable and clearer Ruby code for improved performance. Ruby is a great language, with a lot of quirky syntactical tricks. To make the most of this language, you should study everything you can about it.

Some good things to look into with Ruby are:

• Concurrency and multithreading techniques
• Tracking running processes
• When to use nil
• Converting base numbers

To help you make the most of Ruby, Educative has created two courses on Ruby for different skill levels, (beginner) Learn Ruby from Scratch and (more advanced) Ruby Concurrency for Senior Engineering Interviews. These courses use hands-on practice and real-world examples to teach you how to use Ruby most effectively. By the end, you’ll be able to confidently use Ruby and create efficient, scalable products.

Happy learning!

Continue reading about Ruby and programming tips#

• Getting Started with Ruby on Rails: build a web app with Ruby
• Ruby Tutorial for Python Programmers: how to make the switch
• 7 coding tools that will maximize your effectiveness