Background

RBS is a newly developed syntax language for describing structure of Ruby programs, released with Ruby 3.0.0. RBS is a very useful addition to implement static/runtime type checking for Ruby, which is a dynamically typed language.

Project

My GSoC project with Ruby aimed at providing signatures for standard libraries & third party gems, and improving/fixing the existing RBS toolchain. Providing high quality signatures for various libraries in Ruby would mean an expansion of the userbase of RBS. A feature rich & fullproof toolchain would encourage more users to reap the benefits of RBS.

Specifications:

Descriptive Goal

  • This project is split into two components:

  • RBS Writeup

    • This project was intended to start off by me working on providing RBS writeup of standard & third party libraries
    • This would help me to understand the functionality provided by RBS & it’s many use cases.
    • It would also help me find a few rough edges/scope for improvement in the RBS codebase

  • Improving RBS

    • After having gained sufficient exposure & knowledge with RBS, I would be picking a few issues & start working on them.
    • Based on my capabilities & understanding of RBS codebase, I would be working on a variety of issues which would include bug fixes, features & enhancements.

Work

Pull Request Description Status
RBS for chunky_png gem Provides RBS writeup of Chunky PNG gem, v1.4.0 Merged
RBS for net-http gem Provided RBS writeup of Net::HTTP gem, v0 Merged
RBS for HTTParty gem Provided RBS writeup of HTTParty gem, v0.18.1 Merged
RBS for sidekiq Provided RBS writeup of Sidekiq gem, v6.2 Merged
Generate nested declarations Supports generation of nested declarations while prototyping RBS from Ruby runtime APIs Merged
Remove documentation about super Removed inconsistent documentation about super type Merged
Removed documentation about runtime testing Remove inconsistent documentation about support for runtime test in RBS Merged
Add Recusrive type alias validation Added validation for detecting & pointing out recursive type alias definitions Merged
Generate included modules with complete name Generates complete name for included/prepended/extended modules, i.e, with their namespace Merged
Generate RBS from JSON Schema Generates RBS type definitions from a JSON Schema Merged

Repositories

Completed Work

Part 01 - RBS Writeup

  • Provided RBS writeup of Chunky PNG gem, which included signatures of the APIs provided by the gem & tests. Chunky PNG is a pure Ruby based PNG modifier which is a useful & famous gem.
  • Provided RBS writeup of net-http gem, which included signatures of the APIs provided by the gem & tests to check for compliance of signatures provided with application code. net-http gem is a standard library which is an extremely useful & famous gem for working with programmatic HTTP requests.
  • Provided RBS writeup of HTTParty gem, which included signatures of the APIs provided by the gem & tests. HTTParty is an extremely prominent & useful gem which encapsulates the functionality of net-http gem & provides ability to implement methods in a custom class.
  • Provided RBS writeup of Sidekiq gem, which included signatures of the APIs provided by the gem & tests. Sidekiq is a really famous & useful gem which provides support for Ruby based applications to efficiently handle background processing.

Part 02 - Improving RBS Toolchain

  • Worked on generating nested declarations while prototyping RBS from Ruby runtime APIs. This was a significant improvement since compact declarations had a few downsides.
  • Worked on adding validations for recursive type aliases. This was a good feature that also helped me to gain a lot more understanding of RBS codebase, good coding conventions & data structures.
  • Worked on generating RBS from JSON Schema documents. This was a great feature to work on as it helped me learn a lot about JSON schema & it’s usecases. JSON Schema documents are far more expressive & extensible than RBS and is used for a variety of applications. Hence, support for translating types from JSON schema makes RBS even better.

Learning Outcomes

  • One of the best learning outcomes of this project was a practical experience in coding, following SOLID coding principles.
  • I learnt a lot about type systems, type checking, etc. My mentor provided me with resources to get started off with understanding the basics of types & type systems I always had a knack for learning about the underlying & abstract implementations of programming languages. This project exposed me to a variety of concepts & techniques which helped me understand the working of a programming language.
  • I also got to learn about writing tests for a variety of use cases & the use cases of writing tests while maintaining a large codebase.
  • After having worked on this project, I got to learn a lot about the open source culture, such as planning, brainstorming about ideas & approaches, structured way of coding, involving with the community & contributing to projects.
  • I also got to learn about designing & implementing a clean, user friendly interface while building command line based utilities.

Acknowledgements

I would like to sincerely thank my mentor Soutaro Matsumoto sir for having guided me throughout the course of this project. He was really very helpful & always provided timely constructive feedback regarding my work & ideas. As GSoC mentions in one of it’s guides, mentor is the most important asset for a student in GSoC, which was true in my case. My mentor was truly an asset for me during the course of this program. Once again I would like to thank my mentor for having assisted me throughout the program. I would also like to thank the Ruby community for their assistance & guidance. I wish to continue contributing to this wonderful community of Ruby developers to the best of my capacity

I would also like to thank Mohit Tahilani sir, Govind Jeevan, Pavan Vachhanih, Abhishek Kumar, Salman Shah & Anumeha Agarwal for motivating & guiding me in applying to this program.

I would like to sincerely thank Google for organising such a program which helps several students like me get started with their open source journey & become long standing open source contributors. It is an extra ordinary feeling to look at several developers use tools built or coded by you for various purposes. I sincerely wish to continue contributing to open source.