Microkernel - Ruby

The Microkernel pattern structures an application with a minimal core (the “kernel”) and delegated functionality through plugins or extensions. This promotes modularity, flexibility, and ease of extension without modifying the core. Our Ruby example showcases this by defining a simple Microkernel class that accepts and manages plugins as blocks of code. Plugins are registered during initialization. The run method iterates through the registered plugins, executing each one. This fits Ruby’s nature well due to its block-centric approach and dynamic dispatch, offering conciseness and expressiveness when defining and executing plugins.

# microkernel.rb
class Microkernel
  def initialize
    @plugins = []
  end

  def register_plugin(&plugin)
    @plugins << plugin
  end

  def run(data)
    @plugins.each do |plugin|
      data = plugin.call(data) if plugin
    end
    data
  end
end

# Example Plugins
plugin1 = ->(data) { data + 1 }
plugin2 = ->(data) { data * 2 }
plugin3 = ->(data) { "Result: #{data}" }

# Usage
kernel = Microkernel.new
kernel.register_plugin(&plugin1)
kernel.register_plugin(&plugin2)
kernel.register_plugin(&plugin3)

result = kernel.run(5)
puts result # Output: Result: 10