Ruby Refinements

Refinements were added to the Ruby language as an experimental feature to safely modify an object’s methods in an isolated manner in Version 2.0.0 and became fully supported in Version 2.1.0. In this context, to modify means changing existing behavior, adding new behavior, or disabling behavior altogether. What makes Refinements unique is that they don’t persist changes, globally, as found when monkey patching. The goal of this article is to dive deeper into what refinements are, why they’re important, and how to use them.