Wicked Fast Development with Zeus

rake routes = 4.69s rake routes = 0.34s using zeus gem

problem

I work on a large Rails app for my full time gig. The startup time for the Rails stack is about 20 seconds (aka, 20 seconds too long). This was especially cumbersome when doing TDD-development.

We tried leveraging Spork and Watchr (similar to Rspec-Guard) to more efficiently manage the Rails stack env. These were great tools. But our configuration required us to restart spork/watchr after we had changed a Rails environement constant or symbol (EG, Ruby class, FactoryGirl factory, spec file).

solution = zeus

Then we found zeus.

Zeus loads and re-loads your Rails environment as needed (like when Rails constants or symbols change) so you are guaranteed to have a fresh Rails environment ready at your command to run RSpec, migrations, rake tasks or etc.

Here’s a wicked awesome video from Burke Libbey, the creator of zeus, explaining the deeper technical details.

And here’s an example app.

cd git
gem install rails
gem install spree   # spree requires rmagick (gem), which requires imagamagick (os)

rails new example_zeus
spree install example_zeus
cd example_zeus

time rake routes
# rake routes  4.69s user 0.42s system 99% cpu 5.117 total
### using a MacBook Pro, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD

echo "gem 'zeus'" >> Gemfile
bundle install
zeus init
zeus start

# in a new shell window
cd git/example_zeus
time zeus rake routes
# zeus rake routes  0.34s user 0.03s system 32% cpu 1.136 total
### while using a MacBook Pro, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD

Happy zeus-ing :)