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Seven Habits of Highly Effective Gems by Mat Brown These days, publishing a Ruby Gem is incredibly easy—but publishing a good one isn’t. By following a few best practices when you release your code to the open source community, you can make your library stand out from the crowd. We’ll lay out some basic principles, touching on both code design and build tooling, that will have other programmers clamoring to use and contribute to your project, guaranteeing that you will become a code celebrity practically overnight. Help us caption & translate this video! http://amara.org/v/H0zl/
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In the video "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Gems" presented by Mat Brown at RubyConf 2015, the main topic revolves around the principles that can help developers create popular and effective Ruby Gems. Mat Brown emphasizes that while publishing a Ruby Gem is easily achievable, making it appealing and functional for users requires following best practices. The talk is structured around seven key points designed to improve the user and contributor experience. ### Key Points Discussed: - **Quick Start Guides**: A simple and concise quick start section is vital for user onboarding. Drawing on the example of the Sinatra gem, Brown highlights how a four-line installation command doesn’t overwhelm new users, making it desirable and effective. - **Comprehensive Documentation**: Effective documentation in the README is necessary. A long and detailed README, echoing the usefulness of Sinatra's documentation, provides a roadmap for users and should be updated in parallel with new features or changes in the codebase. - **Semantic Versioning**: Brown stresses the importance of semantic versioning to communicate changes clearly, allowing users to safely upgrade gems without unforeseen issues. A version number is split into three parts: major, minor, and patch, indicating the nature of updates. - **Dependency Management**: Managing dependencies thoughtfully prevents locking users into specific versions. Loose version constraints encourage user-friendly upgrades while ensuring compatibility across different environments. - **Testing and Contribution**: A seamless testing experience is crucial for encouraging contributions. Tools like Bundler and Travis can help automate testing across multiple Ruby versions while providing contributors with clear style guidelines through tools like RuboCop. - **User Interface Design**: Crafting a public interface that aligns with user expectations is emphasized. Developers should ensure that users can access essential functionality without complications, indirectly affecting how often their gem is used. - **Multiple APIs**: Brown advocates for creating both high-level and low-level APIs to cater to varied user needs, allowing flexibility and robustness in how the gem can be leveraged. ### Conclusions and Takeaways: Mat Brown concludes with actionable insights for developers: - Innovate with concise quick setup instructions. - Maintain exhaustive, user-centric documentation and inline comments. - Consistently apply semantic versioning principles. - Ensure backward compatibility and manage dependencies carefully. - Encourage community contributions through an easy-to-run test suite and comprehensive guidelines. - Foster a well-defined user interface, enabling users to utilize gems effectively. By integrating these habits, developers can enhance the reach and success of their Ruby Gems, ultimately contributing significantly to the open-source community.
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