Hacking on Gems - A GitHub-Oriented Workflow

There are a lot of really interesting and useful gems out there, and they are part of what makes working in Ruby so enjoyable. Every now and then, however, you can run into a bug or a missing feature in a gem that you are using, and it's important to know how you can help yourself and the community by contributing back a bug fix or a feature to the gem. This is a simple example workflow that demonstrates how to do that, in a context where the gem project is hosted publicly on GitHub.

Transcript

1. HACKING ON GEMS A GitHub-Oriented Workflow Evgeny Rahman
2. ABOUT ME • Developer • Curious but lazy • Hate getting stuck t & g: evgenyrahman
3. IMPORTANT NOTE
4. USING GEMS • Somebody solved part of your problem • Easy to get / easy to install • Ruby community is great • RubyGems.org
5. BUNDLER • gem install bundler • bundle init • edit Gemfile • bundle
6. OFF YOU GO
7. OFF YOU GO
8. BUT THEN
9. POSSIBLE PROBLEMS • Gem is broken for your environment • Bug in gem breaks your code • Missing feature
10. MAYBE • Nothing is broken, but you’re nice • Documentation • Tests • Security
11. WHAT NOW? • The gem’s source is on GitHub (hooray!) • You have a GitHub account (yay!) • Fork the repo • git clone <repo-url>
12. DO WORK • git checkout -b <new-branch> • Add the fix/feature/docs • Make sure to add tests • Make sure all tests pass! • Don’t bump version! • Commit and push to forked repo
13. PULL REQUEST • Contact gem author/maintainer • Create a pull request on the gem’s repo • Point to <new-branch> on your repo • Be descriptive in pull request • Issue created automatically
14. DREAMS DO COME TRUE! • Pull Request is accepted and merged • New version of gem is published • ??? • Profit! (Fame?)
15. WHAT IF? • Host your forked gems • Monkeypatch in application • But it’s better to contribute
16. THANKS! Questions?