Ever write code like this in Rails?


if File.exists?(File.join(RAILS_ROOT, 'config', 's3.yml'))
  has_attached_file :s3_image,
  :storage => :s3,
  :s3_credentials =>  File.join(RAILS_ROOT, 'config', 's3.yml')
end

That particular snippet is from an application that optionally uses Amazon S3 to store images, if there is a configuration file for S3 supplied in the deployment. Well, you can clean that up a bit. First, although the RAILS_ROOT constant is still supported, we’ve had the prettier-looking Rails.root for months. Second, as of a recent commit to edge rails, Rails.root returns a Pathname object, so it directly supports the join method. Hence, the code snippet above can now be:


if File.exists?(Rails.root.join('config', 's3.yml'))
  has_attached_file :s3_image,
  :storage => :s3,
  :s3_credentials =>  Rails.root.join('config', 's3.yml')
end

A tiny improvement, but of such tiny improvements are a pleasant framework made.