Useful Ruby Gems

Although Rails provides great defaults out-of-the-box, you can easily extend it with Ruby gems. Here are some gems that I find myself using every time I start a new Rails project.

Semantic Logger

Semantic Logger is a feature-rich logging framework, and replacement for existing Ruby & Rails loggers.

gem "amazing_print"
gem "rails_semantic_logger"

Better Errors

Provides a better error page for Rails and other Rack apps. Use with binding_of_caller to include source code inspection, a live REPL and local/instance variable inspection for all stack frames.

group :development do
  gem "better_errors"
  gem "binding_of_caller"
end

Rails-dotenv

Provides a simple way to load environment variables from .env.

gem 'dotenv-rails', groups: [:development, :test]

Add your application configuration to your .env file in the root of your project (git ignore it):

S3_BUCKET=YOURS3BUCKET
SECRET_KEY=YOURSECRETKEYGOESHERE

Whenever your application loads, these variables will be available in ENV:

config.fog_directory  = ENV['S3_BUCKET']

Debugger

Enable step-by-step debugging and stack navigation in Pry.

gem 'pry-byebug'

Set up the shortcuts

➜  touch ~/.pryrc
➜  code ~/.pryrc

if defined?(PryByebug)
    Pry.commands.alias_command 'c', 'continue'
    Pry.commands.alias_command 's', 'step'
    Pry.commands.alias_command 'n', 'next'
    Pry.commands.alias_command 'f', 'finish'
end

Annotate_Models

Annotate Rails classes with schema and routes info.

group :development do
  gem 'annotate'
end

Annotate the models

cd ~/projects/writer
annotate

RSpec-Rails

RSpec for Rails. Behaviour Driven Development.

group :development, :test do
  gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 5.0.0'
end

Check out the usage instructions.

FactoryBot-Rails

A library for setting up Ruby objects as test data.

group :development, :test do
  gem "factory_bot_rails", "~> 6.2"
end

Read the Getting Started guide.
Create one factory for each class that provides the simplest set of attributes necessary to create an instance of that class.
If you’re creating ActiveRecord objects, that means that you should only provide attributes that are required through validations and that do not have defaults.
Other factories can be created through inheritance to cover common scenarios for each class.

Rubocop

A Ruby static code analyzer and formatter, based on the community Ruby style guide.

group :development do
  gem 'rubocop', require: false
end

Add a config file named .rubocop.yml
Disable certain checks

Style/StringLiterals:
  Enabled: false

Here’s the resulting Gemfile with a short description of each gem.

# Semantic Logger is a feature rich logging framework, and replacement for existing Ruby & Rails loggers.
gem "amazing_print"
gem "rails_semantic_logger"

group :development, :test do
  # Step-by-step debugging and stack navigation in Pry
  gem 'pry-byebug'

  # A Ruby gem to load environment variables from `.env`.
  gem 'dotenv-rails', groups: [:development, :test]

  # # RSpec for Rails. Behaviour Driven Development.
  gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 5.0.0'

  # A library for setting up Ruby objects as test data.
  gem "factory_bot_rails", "~> 6.2"
end

group :development do
  # Use console on exceptions pages [https://github.com/rails/web-console]
  gem "web-console"

  # Add speed badges [https://github.com/MiniProfiler/rack-mini-profiler]
  # gem "rack-mini-profiler"

  # Speed up commands on slow machines / big apps [https://github.com/rails/spring]
  # gem "spring"

  # Provides a better error page for Rails and other Rack apps.
  gem "better_errors"

  # Includes source code inspection, a live REPL and local/instance variable inspection for all stack frames.
  gem "binding_of_caller"

  # Annotate Rails classes with schema and routes info
  gem 'annotate'

  # A Ruby static code analyzer and formatter, based on the community Ruby style guide.
  gem 'rubocop', require: false
end