fixme

FIXME comments that raise after a certain point in time:

FIXME "2014-07-31: Stop hard-coding currency."
currency = "USD"

This library makes a FIXME() method available everywhere.

Starting July 31st 2014, the "FIXME" line in the example above would raise Fixme::UnfixedError with the message "Fix by 2014-07-31: Stop hard-coding currency."

You may want to use these bad boys next to:

  • Temporary quick fixes, to ensure they really are temporary.
  • Code that supports legacy workflows during a transitional period.
  • Experiments, to remember to evaluate them and make a decision.
  • Anything else you can't do now but should fix later.

For simplicity, the date comparison uses machine-local time (not e.g. the Rails configured time zone).

Environment awareness

If Rails.env (Ruby on Rails), ENV["APP_ENV"] or ENV["RACK_ENV"] (e.g. Sinatra) is present, it will only ever raise in the "test" and "development" environments. That is, the production app will never raise these exceptions.

Do something other than raise

When these exceptions trigger on your CI server they stop the line, blocking your delivery chain until they're addressed. This could be what you want, or it could be a little annoying.

So you can configure the library to do something other than raise:

# In a Rails project, this might be in config/initializers/fixme.rb
Fixme.explode_with do |details|
  YourOwnCodeOrSomeLibrary.email_developers(details.full_message)
  YourOwnCodeOrSomeLibrary.notify_chat(details.full_message)
end

There's also details.date, details.due_days_ago, details.message and details.backtrace.

You can call Fixme.raise_from(details) to get the default behavior, if you want that under certain conditions:

Fixme.explode_with do |details|
  if details.due_days_ago > 5
    Fixme.raise_from(details)
  else
    YourOwnCodeOrSomeLibrary.notify_chat(details.full_message)
  end
end

Selectively disable

If you e.g. don't want your CI server to raise, make it set the environment variable DISABLE_FIXME_LIB.

Pro-tips

  • Make sure it's clear from the exception or from a separate comment just what should be done – sometimes not even the person who wrote the FIXME will remember what you're meant to change.
  • If a FIXME raises right in a class/module, rather than inside a method, there may be follow-on errors (about missing methods and such) since the rest of that file won't execute. Being aware of this can help understand otherwise confusing CI failures.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'fixme'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install fixme

Develop

Clone the repo, then:

bundle  # Install gem dependencies.
rake    # Run tests.

Also see

Contributors

License

Copyright (c) 2014 Henrik Nyh

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.