Should connect require connect or board

[iHiD]

Someone emailed me about this.

---

Take a look at these two lines:
https://github.com/exercism/ruby/blob/master/exercises/connect/connect_test.rb#L2
https://github.com/exercism/ruby/blob/master/exercises/connect/connect_test.rb#L15

require_relative 'connect'
...
Board.new(board)

We require a file called 'connect' but then require a class called Board. Seems a little un-Ruby-like. Should we require board instead? Thoughts?

[Insti]

Or change the class name to connect. Connect.new(board)

[Insti]

Thoughts:

I agree that to match Ruby conventions the require and the class should have the same name. This is useful for organising code in large projects, but is less of an issue when there is only one file in a project.

The Exercism ruby track convention is for the required file match the slug.

Are there any other exercises that exhibit this mismatch? - yes many.

As a solver I'd rather have the require be the name of the slug so I can find my solution to a particular exercise by slug.

Imagine if there were chess or go or reversi exercises that all tested 'Board' classes.

The student can change the name of the required file in their tests if they want.

Or create the connect.rb file that contains:

require_relative `lib/board`

In Rails application.rb generally does not contain a class/module called Application (edited)

Potential disclaimer: I'm conflicted by 'ease of maintaining the track' since require_relative "#{slug}" is much easier to implement in generators.

Conclusion: I think I'm OK with the current situation. (But am open to having my mind changed.)

[petertseng]

If it is simultaneously important to have the filename match the exercise (connect) and also have the class name be meaningful (and assuming a Board carries more meaning than a Connect), one suggestion I might think of is a module named Connect (in file connect.rb), and the module contains a class Board

[Insti]

That is a good solution. It would become:

require_relative 'connect'
...
Connect::Board.new(board)

(I'm still not sure it's important though.)

[sfairchild]

These are just my opinions. it is important to follow best practices no matter how simple the challenge is. There are time where breaking convention makes sense and is even needed sometimes, but when you are teaching someone new it is best to stick with the best practices unless you explain why you deviated.

require_relative 'connect'
...
Connect::Board.new(board)

This make sense

[kotp]

Robot name is one other one that I can think of where the class and the filename differ.

[Insti]

There's a bunch of them that I've seen by eyeballing it but not worked out the pipeline chain to make a nice list. It starts with egrep -r 'require|\.new' exercises/ (Update: but that misses class methods)

[Insti]

require_relative 'connect'
...
Connect::Board.new(board)

Is it worthwhile inventing a redundant class/module just so we can do this?
Surely it's better just to have the class named 'incorrectly' for the file it's in.

[Insti]

While we're talking about conventions:

The test file is called connect_test.rb
The file it is testing should be called connect.rb

It's important[citation needed] that the test file match the exercise slug.
Therefore it is important that the solution file should be slug.rb

[iHiD]

(cc @kytrinyx)

[kytrinyx]

I don't know that it's important that the test file match the exercise slug, but I think that this is the convention in the Ruby track, so I'm all for being consistent here 👍

[emcoding]

Do we need to take action on this?

[kotp]

I don't think so, but I think it is good that the discussion is here. Closing (feel free to reopen though.)