$30 off During Our Annual Pro Sale. View Details »
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
What the hell is ActiveSupport::Concern?
Search
Aaron Patterson
December 04, 2012
Programming
5
280
What the hell is ActiveSupport::Concern?
A short talk about ActiveSupport::Concern.
Aaron Patterson
December 04, 2012
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Aaron Patterson
See All by Aaron Patterson
RubyKaigi 2025: Class New, A New Approach
tenderlove
0
100
RubyKaigi Dev Meeting 2025
tenderlove
1
3.9k
Speeding up Instance Variables in Ruby 3.3
tenderlove
2
480
[Feature #20425] Speeding up delegate methods
tenderlove
3
300
RailsConf 2023
tenderlove
30
1.3k
Don't @ Me! Faster Instance Variables with Object Shapes
tenderlove
1
490
RailsConf 2022 Keynote
tenderlove
2
600
Some Assembly Required
tenderlove
1
590
HexDevs 2021
tenderlove
1
500
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
Rediscover the Console - SymfonyCon Amsterdam 2025
chalasr
2
140
AIエージェントを活かすPM術 AI駆動開発の現場から
gyuta
0
230
CSC305 Lecture 17
javiergs
PRO
0
270
スタートアップを支える技術戦略と組織づくり
pospome
8
15k
React Native New Architecture 移行実践報告
taminif
1
130
新卒エンジニアのプルリクエスト with AI駆動
fukunaga2025
0
140
Microservices Platforms: When Team Topologies Meets Microservices Patterns
cer
PRO
1
910
CSC305 Lecture 15
javiergs
PRO
0
240
テストやOSS開発に役立つSetup PHP Action
matsuo_atsushi
0
140
AIコーディングエージェント(NotebookLM)
kondai24
0
120
関数の挙動書き換える
takatofukui
4
770
Why Kotlin? 電子カルテを Kotlin で開発する理由 / Why Kotlin? at Henry
agatan
2
6.2k
Featured
See All Featured
The MySQL Ecosystem @ GitHub 2015
samlambert
251
13k
Raft: Consensus for Rubyists
vanstee
140
7.2k
Statistics for Hackers
jakevdp
799
230k
Visualizing Your Data: Incorporating Mongo into Loggly Infrastructure
mongodb
48
9.8k
Unsuck your backbone
ammeep
671
58k
Six Lessons from altMBA
skipperchong
29
4.1k
The Straight Up "How To Draw Better" Workshop
denniskardys
239
140k
Design and Strategy: How to Deal with People Who Don’t "Get" Design
morganepeng
132
19k
How STYLIGHT went responsive
nonsquared
100
5.9k
Dealing with People You Can't Stand - Big Design 2015
cassininazir
367
27k
Practical Orchestrator
shlominoach
190
11k
Site-Speed That Sticks
csswizardry
13
990
Transcript
Thanks!
Hark
Substantial
What the hell is ActiveSupport::Concern?
I have no idea.
U Concerned, Bro?
Aaron Patterson @tenderlove
Lead Pun Architect
Substantial, Thanks
None
Gorbachev Puff-Puff Thunderhorse
None
None
None
None
None
None
Rails Core ~ 3 years (I think)
Confession
What’s in a name?
Classes ❤ File ❤ Hash ❤ Set ❤ Array
Modules ❤ Enumerable ❤ Comparable
AS::Concern
“Concern” is a noun
“Concern” is a noun
“Son, We’re Concerned”
Grown Man.
Stay Classy Change Your Self Track Dependents
Stay Classy.
Class Methods module MyEnumerable def my_first end module ClassMethods def
my_new end end def self.included(klass) klass.extend ClassMethods end end
Including class Aaron include MyEnumerable end p Aaron.respond_to?(:my_new) # =>
true p Aaron.new.respond_to?(:my_first) # => true
With Concern module MyEnumerable extend ActiveSupport::Concern def my_first end module
ClassMethods def my_new end end end
Including class Aaron include MyEnumerable end p Aaron.respond_to?(:my_new) # =>
true p Aaron.new.respond_to?(:my_first) # => true
Be Careful!
Normal Include module MyEnumerable def my_first end end class Aaron
p singleton_methods # => [] include MyEnumerable p singleton_methods # => [] end
Normal Extend module MyEnumerable def my_first end end class Aaron
p singleton_methods # => [] extend MyEnumerable p singleton_methods # => [:my_first] end
Users May Be Surprised
Do I need this?
Are you coupled?
Change Your Self.
Setting up ivars
Class Accessor module MyEnumerable module ClassMethods attr_accessor :foo end def
self.included klass klass.extend ClassMethods end end
Warning! class Aaron include MyEnumerable p foo end
Warning! class Aaron include MyEnumerable p foo end @foo not
initialized
Class Accessor module MyEnumerable module ClassMethods attr_accessor :foo end def
self.included klass klass.extend ClassMethods @foo = 10 end end
Class Accessor module MyEnumerable module ClassMethods attr_accessor :foo end def
self.included klass klass.extend ClassMethods @foo = 10 end end self == MyEnumerable
Class Accessor module MyEnumerable module ClassMethods attr_accessor :foo end def
self.included klass klass.extend ClassMethods klass.class_eval do @foo = 10 end end end
Working Code class Aaron include MyEnumerable p foo # =>
10 end
With Concern module MyEnumerable extend ActiveSupport::Concern module ClassMethods attr_accessor :foo
end included do @foo = 10 end end self == included class
Isolating Setup
Class Method Calls class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base scope :foo, ->
{ ... } scope :bar, -> { ... } scope :baz, -> { ... } # other methods end
Module Extraction module Findable def self.included(klass) klass.scope :foo, -> {
... } klass.scope :bar, -> { ... } klass.scope :baz, -> { ... } end end
Module Extraction module Findable def self.included(klass) klass.scope :foo, -> {
... } klass.scope :bar, -> { ... } klass.scope :baz, -> { ... } end end
class_eval module Findable def self.included(klass) klass.class_eval do scope :foo, ->
{ ... } scope :bar, -> { ... } scope :baz, -> { ... } end end end
Concerned module Findable extend ActiveSupport::Concern included do scope :foo, ->
{ ... } scope :bar, -> { ... } scope :baz, -> { ... } end end
Track Your Dependents.
Two Modules module Foo module ClassMethods def some_method end #
.... end end module Bar def self.included klass klass.some_method end end
Bar depends on Foo
Usage class Aaron include Foo include Bar end
Usage - BOOM! class Aaron include Bar include Foo end
Try to Fix module Foo module ClassMethods def some_method end
end end module Bar include Foo def self.included klass klass.some_method end end
Try to Fix module Foo module ClassMethods def some_method end
end end module Bar include Foo def self.included klass klass.some_method end end
Fix with class_eval module Bar def self.included klass klass.class_eval do
include Foo end klass.some_method end end
Concerned module Bar extend ActiveSupport::Concern include Foo included do some_method
end end
Concerned module Bar extend ActiveSupport::Concern include Foo included do some_method
end end NOT Ruby’s Include
When should I be concerned?
You probably shouldn’t be.
Can you simplify?
Many Dependencies
THANKS!