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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Refactoring: Ruby EditionRefactoring: Ruby Edition

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Refactoring: Ruby EditionRefactoring: Ruby Edition

Learn More Buy

Incomplete Library Class

Reuse is often touted as the purpose of objects. We think reuse is overrated (we just use). However, we can't deny that much of our programming skill is based on library classes so that nobody can tell whether we've forgotten our sort algorithms.

Builders of library classes are rarely omniscient. We don't blame them for that; after all, we can rarely figure out a design until we've mostly built it, so library builders have a really tough job.

In other languages extending an existing library class can be impossible or messy. However, Ruby's open classes make this easy to fix using Move Method to move the behavior needed directly to the library class.

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Last Update: November 17, 2020