The Order doesn't matter anymore

Have you ever been in a situation where you have to remember the order of the parameter while initializing an object? This a dependency, that can be easily overcome by using a hash. Enough talk, let's see the code

Before

class Employee

  def initialize(name, age, gender, department)
    @name = name
    @age =  age
    @gender = gender
    @department = department
  end

end

employee = Employee.new('Mat', 50, 'M', 'Dev')
=> #<Employee:0x00007fa700803d20 @name="Mat", @age=50, @gender="M", @department="Dev">


After

class Employee

  def initialize(args)
    @name = args[:name]
    @age =  args[:age]
    @gender = args[:gender]
    @department = args[:department]
  end

end

employee = Employee.new(age: 50, department: 'Dev',name: 'Mat', gender: 'M')
=> #<Employee:0x00007fa6fc8ab060 @name="Mat", @age=50, @gender="M", @department="Dev">

As you can see above the order doesn't matter anymore. You don't to remember parameter order to create an employee object. What if while initializing an object you have to set a default value. For this it's better to use ruby's in build method called fetch for hash

class Employee

  def initialize(args)
    @name = args.fetch(:name)
    @age =  args.fetch(:age)
    @gender = args.fetch(:gender)
    @department = args.fetch(:department, "dev")
  end

end

employee = Employee.new(name: 'Mat', age: 50, gender: 'M')

=> #<Employee:0x00007fa6fe8a1f18 @name="Mat", @age=50, @gender="M", @department="dev">

Hope this quick tip was helpful. Share your tips in comments. Let me know if you are interested in more such tips and best practices.