--- title: "Turning VS Code into a Ruby IDE" publication: "Ruby Weekly" issue: 526 published_at: "2020-11-05" canonical_url: "https://rubyweekly.com/issues/526" --- Plus RubyConf 2020, Rails 6.1 RC1, and Minitest or RSpec? #526 — November 5, 2020 [Read on the Web](https://rubyweekly.com/issues/526) Ruby Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/v1604594271/nkcsktxcgcqiyby1ymdm.png)](https://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2020/11/2/Rails-6-1-rc1-release/) [Rails 6.1 RC1 Now Available](https://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2020/11/2/Rails-6-1-rc1-release/) — The list of features and fixes coming to 6.1 is impressive, to say the least: horizontal DB sharding, per-database connection switching, strict loading associations, delegated types (an alternative to STI), error objects. and more… whew. It’s time to play. Eileen M. Uchitelle [RubyConf 2020: This Time It's Virtual](https://rubyconf.org/) — If you’ve never made it to RubyConf for logistical reasons, this may be the year for you. It still costs money, but will be entirely online with Q&As, ‘virtual hangs’ and even a hallway track. Here’s [the full schedule.](http://rubyconf.org/schedule) RubyConf [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/955c65ea.png)](https://buttercms.com/ruby-cms/?utm_source=rubyweekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=numberone) [ButterCMS Melts into Your Ruby App. #1 Rated Headless CMS](https://buttercms.com/ruby-cms/?utm_source=rubyweekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=numberone) — ButterCMS is the #1 rated Headless CMS for Ruby. Let your marketing team blog, create landing pages and more w/ our easy to use dashboard. Fast content API for modern apps. Secure. Scalable. Less Code. Try free today for 30 days. ButterCMS sponsor [Pattern Matching No Longer Experimental](https://github.com/ruby/ruby/commit/b60153241121297c94de976419d421683da4d51b) — It’s only a commit on the core repo so you’ll probably be waiting for Ruby 3 for this but [pattern matching](https://medium.com/@retrorubies/ruby-2-7-experimental-pattern-matching-in-few-examples-4d0987b9e12f), as introduced in Ruby 2.7, is no longer considered an experimental feature. Core Ruby Repository 📘 Articles & Tutorials [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/by5psuyfewpkm6tbpxtx.jpg)](https://www.driftingruby.com/episodes/from-editor-to-ide) ▶[Taking VS Code From Editor to IDE](https://www.driftingruby.com/episodes/from-editor-to-ide) — Visual Studio Code is a powerful editor by itself, but with the addition of a few extensions, you can turn it into a much more intelligent IDE. _(13 minutes.)_ Drifting Ruby [How to Migrate Your JavaScript From Sprockets to Webpacker](https://www.fastruby.io/blog/rails/webpack/from-sprockets-to-webpacker.html) — Rails 3.1 introduced the ‘asset pipeline’ nine years ago(!) built around Sprockets. Webpack solved some of the same issues in the JavaScript world and since Rails 6 it’s been the default solution via Webpacker. But what about if you need to migrate? Ariel Juodziukynas [How to Create a Ruby CLI App and Distribute It Via Homebrew](https://longliveruby.com/articles/ruby-command-line-application-homebrew) — Covers all the essentials quickly and clearly. ([Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) is a popular package manager on macOS (and less so on Linux).) Paweł Dąbrowski [Ready for Rails 6.1? Our Stay Up to Date Service Can Help](https://fastruby.io/stay-up-to-date?utm_source=rubyweekly) — FastRuby.io's new Stay Up To Date service continually pushes PRs to your repository to ease your future upgrade to Rails 6.1. FastRuby.io | Rails Upgrade Services sponsor [The Performance Impact of Using Rails View Partials](https://scoutapm.com/blog/performance-impact-of-using-ruby-on-rails-view-partials) — Using partials may DRY things up, but it can lose performance. This post presents (HA!) an alternative before noting: _“It’s better to repeat yourself than to ship an app with mediocre performance.”_ Pawel Urbanek [A List of Rails Shims](https://www.fastruby.io/blog/rails/upgrades/rails-upgrade-shims.html) — When upgrading a Rails app, you’ll sometimes find that functionality is extracted from Rails and moved into a new gem. These gems are called _shims._ Luciano Becerra ▶[SQL, Arel and the 'Dark Side' of ActiveRecord](https://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/ruby-476-sql-arel-and-the-dark-side-of-activerecord-with-eric-hayes/) — Eric Hayes spoke at this year’s online RailsConf about [wrangling your SQL with Arel](http://railsconf.org/2020/video/eric-hayes-wrangle-your-sql-with-arel) and here he joins the _Ruby Rogues_ to discuss his journey into the dark, undocumented depths of Arel and why writing custom SQL queries in your apps can make good sense. Ruby Rogues Podcast podcast ▶[How I'd Build It: How Noah Gibbs Would Build a Scheduling Feature](https://railswithjason.simplecast.fm/noah-gibbs-4) Rails with Jason Podcast [Which Test Framework Should I Learn, RSpec or Minitest?](https://www.codewithjason.com/test-framework-learn-rspec-minitest/) Jason Swett [What Level of Test Coverage Should You Shoot For?](https://www.codewithjason.com/test-coverage/) Jason Swett [Inserting from Datasets with Sequel](https://janko.io/inserting-from-datasets-with-sequel/) Janko Marohnić [Structuring Monitoring Data in Monolithic Applications with Namespaces](https://blog.appsignal.com/2020/11/04/structuring-monitoring-data-in-monolith-applications-through-namespaces.html) Tomas Fernandez (AppSignal) 💻 Jobs [Senior Ruby on Rails Developer (Remote/EU)](https://www.goboony.co.uk/info/senior-ruby-on-rails-developer) — Join our growing team of passionate engineers and help us develop the leading motorhome sharing platform in Europe. Goboony [Find a Job Through Vettery](https://www.vettery.com/tech?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=cooper-rubyweekly&utm_term=tech&utm_content=grouped&utm_campaign=ad-77583) — Create a profile on Vettery to connect with hiring managers at startups and Fortune 500 companies. It's free for job-seekers. Vettery ℹ️ _Interested in running a job listing in Ruby Weekly? There's [more info here](https://booking.cooperpress.com/jobs)_. 🛠 Code and Tools [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/d9uv9gqr73ybaaiwrq9y.jpg)](https://github.com/tj/terminal-table) [Terminal Table 2.0: An ASCII Table Generator](https://github.com/tj/terminal-table) — One of those projects where the examples show you everything you need to know, so [check them out.](https://github.com/tj/terminal-table#label-Basics) TJ Holowaychuk [Termplot: A Simple Terminal Plotting Tool for Streaming Data](https://github.com/Martin-Nyaga/termplot) — Let’s say you have a stream of numbers.. feed them into this and get a live graph in the terminal. Martin Nyaga [Seamlessly Integrate Video into Your Ruby App](https://get.mux.com/2HYJ4dh) Mux sponsor [CrawlerDetect: Gem to Detect Bots and Crawlers via the User Agent](https://github.com/loadkpi/crawler_detect) — Of course, this won’t catch the more nefarious bots hiding under ‘legit’ seeming user agent strings but claims to detect “1000s” of bots, spiders, and crawlers. Pavel Kozlov [graphql-ruby: A Ruby Implementation of GraphQL](https://github.com/rmosolgo/graphql-ruby) Robert Mosolgo [RubyMine 2020.3 EAP6: Improvements for Code Assistance, Editor, and Navigation](https://blog.jetbrains.com/ruby/2020/10/rubymine-2020-3-eap6/) JetBrains Curated by [Peter Cooper](https://twitter.com/peterc), [Glenn Goodrich](https://twitter.com/ruprict) and [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/). 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