Understanding why testing is so critical in Ruby

Testing is critical to ensure proper behavior in every programming language, but it is especially critical in Ruby. In many other programming languages, the programming language has a type system that will catch errors related to improper use of types when the program is compiled, before the program is run. Ruby uses a dynamic type system, so it will not catch many errors related to the improper use of data types. Ruby programs are also generally not compiled until you try to run them, so even simple syntax errors will not be caught unless you try to load the related code. Combined, these two qualities make testing in Ruby more critical than in many other programming languages.

When talking about testing, the lack of type checking is often considered a missing feature. However, one of the best things about Ruby is that it doesn't require you to specify types for variables and methods. Unlike most languages, Ruby doesn't...