From: John Gabriele <jmg3000@...>
Date: 2006-06-03T02:53:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Where can one find examples of masterful Ruby code?

On 6/1/06, James Britt <james_b@neurogami.com> wrote:
> Alder Green wrote:
> > On 6/1/06, Tyler Prete <psyonic@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hopefully you'll get more helpful answers to this question from someone a
> >> little more knowledgable, but a few examples of fantastic code (although
> >> often complicated) are the ruby library, rails, and ruby quiz.
> >
> >
> > Being a Rails programmer, I tried reading some of Rails' code and it
> > looks like you have to commit to reading a large portion of it to gain
> > any understanding. At least the core stuff that I sampled
> > (ActiveRecord, ActionPack) looks very tightly knit together. A guide
> > about approaching the Rails codebase might be very helpful, and
> > beneficial considering the importance of codebase accessibility in an
> > OSS project. Maybe I should raise this issue in the Rails ML.
> >
>
>
> Semi-rhetorical questions:  If you are not already well-versed in Ruby,
> how do you know you are reading masterful code?
>
> If you are reading masterful code, can one appreciate what makes it
> masterful without a firm knowledge of Ruby?
>
> Is the definition of "masterful" conditional?  If so, on what?

I think you might have your tongue in your cheek asking that last one,
but I'll answer that it's only masterful if it's well documented. That
is: if other devs can't jump in and easily behold your mastery, than
what sort of a master are you?

What good is pulling of a daring coup in your code if no one sees why
(or if it takes way too long to figure out how) you did it?

---John