Why you shouldn’t inherit from Ruby’s core classes (and what to do instead)
Sooner or later you’ll want to subclass Ruby’s String, Array, or Hash. In this now-free RubyTapas video, you’ll learn why that’s a bad idea… and what to do instead.
Safely Call Superclass Methods from Ruby Modules
In today’s RubyTapas throwback, we tackle a metaprogramming topic. How do you reliably call superclass methods from included modules… when you can’t know for sure if those methods exist, or…
That’s So Fetch
It’s time for another dip into the RubyTapas archives! In this third and last episode on Ruby’s #fetch family of methods, now free to all, we get into some advanced…
Controlling superclass argument pass-through in Ruby
In Ruby class-based programming, superclass versions of subclass methods are always invoked explicitly using the super keyword. There are some nuances to using super though, particularly when it comes to…
Ruby Singleton Objects
Here’s another freebie from the deep RubyTapas stacks. This one is about a truth of object modeling that we don’t often talk about: not every object needs to have state….
Why and how to use Ruby’s Hash#fetch for default values
Here’s another classic from the early days of RubyTapas. Originally published as Episode #11 in October 2012, it’s a complement to the episode on using fetch as an assertion. This…
Alternative Ruby Symbol Literals
Periodically I take episodes from the RubyTapas archives and publish them for free. This episode from October 2012 is about symbol literals, and how you can use alternative quoting syntax…