Using vim-slime with pry for REPL perfection #

I used to use Python for my everyday scripting tasks, but since I started working at Paperless Post, a Rails shop, I’ve felt like investing some skill points in Ruby would be a wise investment. Ruby is fun to write, but my workflow suffered from a severe lack of interactive programming support. No, irb doesn’t cut it, not for someone used to the mighty Dreampie. I was heartbroken… until I discovered an alternative. It’s not a single powerful app, like Dreampie — instead, I had to stitch together several tools to get the same effects. But it makes exploratory programming a breeze, and that’s more than I can say for irb.

To build this interactive-programming Frankenstein’s monster, you’ll need three tools: vim, tmux, and Pry.

The Tools #

tmux is GNU screen if GNU screen beat the final boss and started again with NewGame+. It’s a powerful beast, and I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface. I like its status bar and scrollback pager, and when sshing into a remote, tmux splits are like mojitos on a hot day — once you have them, you realize you needed them all along.

Pry is a replacement for irb. If I’ve barely scratched the surface of tmux, it’s safe to say that I haven’t even given Pry a belly rub. Since my Ruby is as rusty as an old railroad bridge, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of its ls and show-doc features. Did you know that ls [], for instance, shows not only all the properties and methods of the object, but what module those methods came from? Exceedingly useful when working with a codebase laced with mixins. You can use pry as your Rails console by invoking these incantations.

vim needs no introduction, but you’ll also need the vim-slime plugin, which lets you send text straight from vim into tmux. That’s what ties this whole mess together and makes it work. Install the plugin and follow the configuration steps in its README.

The Steps #

Run vim.
Run tmux in a separate terminal.
Run pry in a tmux window.
Type some Ruby in vim and return to normal mode.
C-c C-c; you can just hold Ctrl and double-tap c.

Now that entire paragraph of Ruby code — the line you’re on and all adjacent lines north and south of it — gets sent to the pry session and executed. You’re in business. You can also visually select some specific lines and hit the same sequence. Same deal.

The Payoff #

Write your Ruby program line by line, testing each line by sending it to pry. By using pry’s cd function, you can even go into a class and define or redefine its methods. Try this out:

class Test
  def greeting
    "hello"
  end
end

test = Test.new

cd Test

def greeting
  "what's up?"
end

cd ..

test.greeting # returns "what's up?"

Since you’re writing the program right there in vim, there’s relatively little cleanup necessary to get the code into a useable form; and since you’re testing it in pry all along, there’s no write/run cycle to use up your keystrokes or mental effort. Writing, experimenting, testing, and polishing are as tight as four fingers in a fist.

Update: Pry as a Stepping Debugger #

Since writing this post, I’ve learned a lot more about how to use Pry to debug a running program. Yes, even Rails. Interactive Debugging with Pry has the scoop.