[barrkel]

I stick a 'binding.pry' (pry gem) in the body of the method I'm trying to write, and I trigger it with a test that has all the correct parameters (i.e. the happy path).

I then write my code in the REPL. I can use 'ls' to look up available methods dynamically. Complex ActiveRecord queries are much easier to prototype. Finding the right method isn't usually too difficult. And pry supports prefix completion at the first level. Assign the result to a variable, and you can do more completion at the next level.

For loops and if-branches, I typically take the bit of data that is relevant to the loop body or that if branch, and work with it separately, to develop that branch. But it's more usual for me to use map and select than explicit loops in any case.

I copy each finished line of code from the repl into my editor, as and when I'm happy with it.

This method of working is also why I don't see any benefit from using RubyMine. I use emacs, and primarily I rely on global project regex (using helm-git-grep and helm-projectile) to navigate the system.

(A happy coincidence is that the default readline key bindings are emacs style, so a lot of what you learn in emacs maps straight over to the repl terminal.)

[dopamean]

I actually follow a very similar pattern when developing in both Ruby and Clojure. I particularly like it in Clojure because I can run `(doc function-name)` to get some documentation on the function I intend to use (I can never remember the order of arguments!!).

[barrkel]

The pry equivalents are show-doc and show-source.

They don't always work depending on configuration, but it's very nice when they do. They can even go far enough to show the C source for builtins.

[lhc-]

I do this a lot in the ipython REPL. You can type "method_name?" and see the docstring and some other basic info about the method (like args), its extremely helpful.