Basic Tools to keep Ruby on Rails Code Clean and Organized

Are you planning to create a Ruby on Rails app? When developing a large Rails application, it may contain millions of lines of code and so it is important to keep the code clean and organized. Even an experienced RoR developer may find it challenging to keep the code clean. There are a lot of gems available to make the job easier and simpler. Gems are a boon for Ruby on rails. They add the required functionality to the web app.

If a developer takes over someone else’s project, they may face a difficulty in managing the code. Sometimes, the code of the project may be inefficient. Managing the code manually may be time consuming and affects your productivity. Expert RoR developers can help you clean and optimize your code for the best results.

Ruby is an open source object oriented programming language used for website development. This MVC framework is widely used by developers for building innovative web apps. Creating a web app with Ruby on Rails is 5-10 times faster than building one on any Java frameworks.

How to improve the performance of a Ruby on Rails app?

Whether you’re taking over someone else’s project or inefficient code has been built up by now, you can avoid the manual code refactoring as it is a time consuming and tedious task. To make the work easier, you can use gems. Before you take any steps to optimize your apps, make sure that you set up the right profiling tool such as Scout, RubyProf, or New Relic. You should use a profiling tool that is safe to run in production mode. The tool can identify the slow code and you can focus on those parts first.

If you want to improve the speed of app, then executing less Ruby on every request can be the right solution. Caching is considered to be the best way to do this. All the content produced at the request-response cycle time can be stored and reused. You can refer to the official Rails guide on caching to get a clear understanding of the technical details that involve various caching APIs of Rails. There are several caching backend available and each one has advantages as well as disadvantages. Some of them may be slow but may offer sharing between servers and hosts, while others may be fast but not capable of sharing cache. Depending on your requirements, you can set up your cache store to improve the performance of your app. Profiling tools can be used to show you parts of the pages that slow down your app performance.

You can make use of Gems and Plugins. There are several Rails plugins there. It can be a good idea to conduct some research on the source of plugins and make sure that the ones you choose can serve your intended purpose, otherwise it may do more harm than good.

1. TraceRoute

This is a route cleaning tool for Rails applications. It helps to find dead routes and actions. It checks the routes that are mapped to non existing controller actions, and figures out the ones that are not reachable.

2. DeadWeight

Your CSS file may be becoming very huge and you may want to get rid of unused CSS. DeadWeight is used for cleaning the unused CSS selectors. It will report the developers about the CSS selectors that are safe to remove. Find unused CSS selectors by using DeadWeight.

3. RubyCritic

This is a new gem that is a combination of statistical analysis gems – Reek, Flay, and Flog. Reek is used for determining smelly code, Flay helps to detect duplicate code, and Flog is used for ABC metrics. It is a great output that is very convenient to comment with your team members.

4. Rack Mini Profiler

This great tool helps the developers find any kind of bottlenecks of your app. It conducts live speed analysis and determines how much time the request processing took. All you need to do is plug it into the Gemfile and all the information about several renderings, database queries, and DOM loading.

5. Bullet

One major challenge faced by RoR developers is the N+1 query. The Bullet gem helps you kill all N+1 queries and create optimized code. This powerful gem helps to improve the performance of the application.

6. RubyCop

This is a static code analyzer that can be used to check if your code complies with the Ruby community code guidelines. Any kind of style violations can be detected. Developers can define which cops to use, and maintain the code in a clean and consistent manner.

7. BrakeMan

Cyber crime is a real threat these days. It is important to develop a secure code without any malicious elements. Brakeman is a great security analysis tool for building Rails application. It scans your app and sends security warnings. The severity of the security warnings may be described as high, medium, or low. This gem facilitates the process of creating secure code.

8. Rails Best Practices

Rails Best Practices is a quality analyzer gem. This Rails gem helps to sniff out code smells. It offers a lot of suggestions, restricts auto-generated routes, and add database indexed. It is a preferred choice of several users as it offers awesome suggestions for refactoring the code. Developers can keep their code clean and tidy with the help of this gem.

No matter what type of application you’re planning to build, the code should be clean and organized. Sometimes, the developer may find it difficult to clean the code while developing a RoR application. The above-listed tools can help you speed up the development process and make it more structured. Use the right tools for optimizing the code for large Ruby on Rails applications. Pick the best gems matching your requirements and create clean code for your next RoR app. Database indexing, reducing heap allocation, and load balancing are some of the alternate ways to speed up your Rails application.