Active Reload
## The only Rails boost tool that doesn’t try to be too smart.
Active Reload is a gem that changes a little when Rails code reloading is executed. Normally Rails “forgets” your code after every request in development mode and loads again necessary files during the request. If your application is big this can take lot of time especially on “dashboard” page that uses lot of different classes.
However this constant reloading is not always necessary. This gem changes it so it occurs before request and only when file was changed or added. It won’t make reloading your app faster but it will skip reloading when nothing changed and that saved second can really sum up to a big value. It means that after change first request in development mode will reload the code and take as much time as it takes without this gem but subsequent request will be faster until next changes due to lack of code reloading.
It works for you so you want to thank? There are many options:
- Meet me at wroc_love.rb conference : http://wrocloverb.com/ and buy me a beer.
- Tweet about the gem
- Tell you friends to try it
- Donate
Y U NO BELIEVE ?
Watch these videos for comparison:
2 simultaneous movies:
http://youtubedoubler.com/1fts
Spree in development mode without Active Reload
Spree in development and Active Reload enabled
Installation
Simply add Active Reload to your Gemfile and bundle it up:
ruby
gem 'active_reload'
Compatibility
Tested with Ruby 1.9.2 and 1.8.7.
Tested with Rails 3.0.10 and 3.1.0.rc6 (older versions of this gem have been tested with older rails versions, check it by reading README.md in older tag versions)
Notifications
You can subscribe to two notifications provided by this gem.
active_reload.set_clear_dependencies_hook_replaced event is triggered when the gem changes original rails hook for code reloading.
ruby
ActiveSupport::Notifications.subscribe("active_reload.set_clear_dependencies_hook_replaced") do |*args|
event = ActiveSupport::Notifications::Event.new(*args)
msg = event.name
# Ubuntu: https://github.com/splattael/libnotify, Example: Libnotify.show(:body => msg, :summary => Rails.application.class.name, :timeout => 2.5, :append => true)
# Macos: http://segment7.net/projects/ruby/growl/
puts Rails.logger.warn(" --- #{msg} --- ")
end
active_support.dependencies.clear event is triggered when code reloading is triggered by this gem.
ruby
ActiveSupport::Notifications.subscribe("active_support.dependencies.clear") do |*args|
msg = "Code reloaded!"
# Ubuntu: https://github.com/splattael/libnotify, Example: Libnotify.show(:body => msg, :summary => Rails.application.class.name, :timeout => 2.5, :append => true)
# Macos: http://segment7.net/projects/ruby/growl/
puts Rails.logger.info(" --- #{msg} --- ")
end
Links
- http://blog.robert.pankowecki.pl/2011/06/faster-rails-development-part-2.html
- http://blog.robert.pankowecki.pl/2011/05/get-faster-rails-development.html
Testing & Contribution
```bash cd active_reload
bundle install cd test/dummy309/ bundle install cd ../..
cd test/dummy310rc5/ bundle install cd ../..
bundle exec rake test ```
Do you want to reproduce the video experiment ?
The tested spree version was: https://github.com/spree/spree/tree/42795d91d3680394ef70126e6660cac3da81e8a9
It was installed in sandbox mode:
bash
git clone git://github.com/spree/spree.git spree
cd spree
git checkout 42795d91d3680394ef70126e6660cac3da81e8a9
bundle install
rake sandbox
cd sandbox
# Edit Gemfile to add or remove active_reload support
rails server
Here is the ruby script that walks through the site using capybara:
```ruby require ‘bbq/test’ # https://github.com/drugpl/bbq require ‘benchmark’
shop = [“Ruby on Rails”, “Apache”, “Clothing”, “Bags”, “Mugs”] admin = [ “Overview”, “Orders”, “Next”, “Products”, “Option Types”, “Properties”, “Prototypes”, “Product Groups”, “Reports”, “Sales Total”, “Configuration”, “General Settings”, “Mail Methods”, “Tax Categories”, “Zones”, “States”, “Payment Methods”, “Taxonomies”, “Shipping Methods”, “Inventory Settings”, “Analytics Trackers”, “Complete List”, “Users”, “Promotions” ]
user = Bbq::TestUser.new(:driver => :selenium, :session => :default) user.visit(“/”)
Benchmark.measure do
shop.each do |link| user.click_on(link) end
user.visit(“/admin”) user.fill_in(“Email”, :with => “[email protected]”) user.fill_in(“Password”, :with => “[email protected]”) user.click_button(“Log In”)
admin.each do |link| user.click_on(link) end
FileUtils.touch( Rails.root.join(“app/controllers/application_controller.rb”) )
admin.first(5).each do |link| user.click_on(link) end
user.click_on “Logout”
end ```