Absurdity

A rails gem for absurdly simple a/b testing

Prerequisites

Redis (tested with 1.2.6, 2.2.2) Rails (tested with 3.0.10, 3.1.0)

Installation

gem "absurdity"

Usage

Instantiate a Redis client

Put this in an initializer, for expample config/initializers/redis_absurdity.rb:

Absurdity.redis = Redis.new(:host => "localhost", :port => 6379)

Note: More often you will use a redis.conf to set up your redis client, the important part is to assign your redis client instance to Absurdity.redis . Don’t forget to start your Redis server.

Define Experiments

mkdir "absurdity" in your rails app root directory
touch "absurdity/experiments.yml"

define your experiments in this file:
:experiments:
  :wild_side:
    :metrics:
        - :fun
        - :hangover
    :variants:
        - :with_music
        - :without_music
  :walk:
    :metrics:
        - :sun
        - :rain
    :variants:
        - :slow
        - :fast
    :completed:
      :fast

:wild_side will be the name of your experiment
[:fun, :hangover] will be the metrics you wish to track
[:with_music, :without_music] will be the variants you wish to vary

the :walk has been marked as completed.
You should identify which variant to show here (:fast).
Now everyone will only see the :fast variant.
And, no one will produce any metric tracking.

Note: You can't use the shortform for declaring an array of symbols in ruby 1.9.2 and Psych.
So instead of using :metrics: [:fun, :hangover] use the longer form shown above.

Usage in a controller

def create
  Absurdity.track! :fun, :wild_side, current_user.id
end

Usage in view/helpers

def my_helper
  variant = Absurdity.variant :wild_side, current_user.id
  if variant == :with_music
    Play.music
  else
    Play.nothing
  end
end

View Metrics

/absurdities                 => linked list of experiments
/absurdities/experiment_name => show experiment

Authors

Tim Payton Ömür Özkir

Please find out more about our work in our tech blog.

License

The MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.