Ruby Midwest 2011 - Confident Code

Confident Code by: Avdi Grimm

Are your methods timid? Do they constantly second-guess themselves, checking for nil values, errors, and unexpected input?
Even the cleanest Ruby codebases can become littered over time with nil checks, error handling, and other interruptions which steal attention away from the essential purpose of the code. This talk will discuss strategies for writing your Ruby classes and methods in a confident, straightforward style; without sacrificing functionality or robustness. In the process, we'll cover concepts and techniques points including:
The narrative style of method construction
The four parts of a method
Three strategies for dealing with uncertain input
Massaging input with coercion and the Decorator pattern
Lightweight preconditions
Exterminating nils from your code
The chaining and iterative styles of method construction
Eliminating conditionals with the Special Case and Null Object patterns
Isolating errors with the Bouncer and Checked Method patterns