Build a Ruby Gem Book Update
This past weekend I added ~ 6,000 words to the existing content. I’m really excited to be nearing the end of the road. I’ve gotten some great feedback since I started and wanted to gather a bit more to finalize the chapter list.
Here’s the chapter list I’m working with so far:
- Introduction What is a gem? Why build a gem?)
- File structure of a gem
- Testing/debugging setup
- Code implementation of of example gem
- Release (how to release? and when to release?)
- Changelog (What is it? and what to include?)
- Responsibility of a gem author
- Loading additional libraries within a gem
- Command-line utilities
- Configuration patterns
- Rails hooks
- Rails view helpers
- Rails controller includes
- Rails Model Includes
- Rails rake tasks
- Rails engines (when/why to use?)
- Open source management
Phew! That’s a lot…so with that in mind, have I covered everything?
Please leave a comment if you’re interested in reading about something I haven’t mentioned.
One of the things I’m most excited about is being able to use real-word examples for each chapter. I learn by reading and writing my own code and really appreciate when a book/post does the same. I’ve tried to do that at every step of the way. Hopefully this will make the book more valuable to you.
I will be in touch in the next few weeks with a sample chapter or two, along with some feature blog posts.