4 ms·

Maybe you already know it, but I find `something.method(:mystery_method).source_location` points me to the right place more often than not. I only mention it be

by grncdr 5y ago

Maybe you already know it, but I find `something.method(:mystery_method).source_location` points me to the right place more often than not. I only mention it because I have noticed a lot of people work productively in Ruby without leveraging it's dynamic/reflective features[0], but little idioms like the above are absolute lifesavers for me. [0]: A big disadvantage of the above is it's not statically resolvable, so you couldn't really build an IDE go-to-definition with it.

Lio 5y ago
The two tools I'd recommend for navigating ruby code in addition to #source_location are Solargraph[1] and, my favourite, good 'ol exuberant ctags[2]. Solargraph is an amazing project but ctags is still just so fast and low overhead that it's what I mostly use. ctag support is available for most editors and is built into Vim. You need to first generate a tag file (or have an editor plugin do it for you[3]) and then press Ctrl-] to go to definition. 1. https://solargraph.org/ https://solargraph.org/ 2. http://ctags.sourceforge.net/ http://ctags.sourceforge.net/ 3. https://github.com/tpope/gem-ctags https://github.com/tpope/gem-ctags
- nitrogen 5y ago
  And don't forget the option of just calling into pry at the line in question and typing ls and show-doc. Also ripgrep is incredibly useful for navigating new codebases.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Yes, grep + debugger / pry were how I solved this when I was still writing lots of Ruby. I find it much more productive to be able to get these answers statically, but I was too strong when I said "impossible"; there's always some way to find the right code, or the VM wouldn't be able to run it :)
  - Lio 5y ago
    Yes, you’re quite right! Thank you again, I must remember to use pry more. With ruby 3.1 I think we’re getting a new default debug.rb gem. It will be interesting to see if pry or the beat ideas from pry can be integrated with that.

by grncdr 5y ago

Lio 5y ago

The two tools I'd recommend for navigating ruby code in addition to #source_location are Solargraph[1] and, my favourite, good 'ol exuberant ctags[2]. Solargraph is an amazing project but ctags is still just so fast and low overhead that it's what I mostly use. ctag support is available for most editors and is built into Vim. You need to first generate a tag file (or have an editor plugin do it for you[3]) and then press Ctrl-] to go to definition. 1. https://solargraph.org/ https://solargraph.org/ 2. http://ctags.sourceforge.net/ http://ctags.sourceforge.net/ 3. https://github.com/tpope/gem-ctags https://github.com/tpope/gem-ctags

nitrogen 5y ago
And don't forget the option of just calling into pry at the line in question and typing ls and show-doc. Also ripgrep is incredibly useful for navigating new codebases.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  Yes, grep + debugger / pry were how I solved this when I was still writing lots of Ruby. I find it much more productive to be able to get these answers statically, but I was too strong when I said "impossible"; there's always some way to find the right code, or the VM wouldn't be able to run it :)
- Lio 5y ago
  Yes, you’re quite right! Thank you again, I must remember to use pry more. With ruby 3.1 I think we’re getting a new default debug.rb gem. It will be interesting to see if pry or the beat ideas from pry can be integrated with that.