Best way to learn new ruby gems? [closed]

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Closed 开发者_运维知识库9 years ago.

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I wonder what is the best way to learn new gems when you first encounter it.

I know that you can check official website (easiest way!), check the Rdoc, generate yard doc, play in irb and of course, glad the source code.

But, what YOU do ? What's the more efficient method or process ? Any other tools to use ?

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My favourite way of learning new gems (besides reading the readme sometimes) is gemedit:

gem edit <gem_name>
# vim opens the gem directory

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Normally I search for Gems if I'm looking for a specified task that I think has already been implemented by somebody else (e.g. API Wrapper for Facebook or Twitter).

So I...

• Read the homepage/wiki (at least parts of it)
• Tutorials
• Documentation, if I'm looking for something specific
• Browse the code - this is often more effective than reading the docs, since the documentation and tutorials are sometimes outdated and/or for another version. The truth is always in the code.. ;)

Also you'll learn a lot by reading the stuff other people have written.

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If you're using bundler installed you can run

bundle show <gem_name>
# or
bundle open <gem_name>

which will show the location of the gem or open it in the editor you have set.

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If the gem is on Github, I also spend some time browsing the issues (both open and closed). There's a ton of insight to be found there, both in terms of how actively supported the gem is and how robust it is for potentially soling my problem(s).