Building a Ruby Library: The Parts No One Talks About

Mitchell Hashimoto’s talk from Aloha Ruby Conf is an opinionated look at the simple, easy-to-overlook but important-to-get-right aspects of writing a Ruby library. Everybody understands the importance of an intuitive API and good tests, but Hashimoto has advice on:

• configuration: make it simple, do it in Ruby, and keep it all in one place
• logging: actually do it, and use a logging library (not Ruby’s standard logger) that allows namespacing, so people using your library can choose what functionality they want to see logs about
• exceptions: have custom exceptions (but use standard exceptions when appropriate) and only rescue your library’s own exceptions, since exceptions you didn’t anticipate are probably bugs
• documentation: as with tests, it’s less painful to write docs from the start as you work, and he recommends YARD
• support: make it clear how people can get it, whether it’s an email address, mailing list, or on Github issues; you don’t need to monitor it 24/7, but people need to know where to go for help