This ripl plugin provides a simple way to define blocks which are run after ~/.irbrc is loaded. A more useful version of IRB.conf.

Install the gem with:

sudo gem install ripl-after_rc

Add to your ~/.riplrc

require 'ripl/after_rc'

Anywhere in your ~/.irbrc

Ripl.after_rc do
  # some code to run after ~/.irbrc
end

You can call Ripl.after_rc as many times as you’d like and the blocks will be called later in the order they were defined.

So why use this at all? Say you have some Rails helpers to define but Rails doesn’t get loaded until later in the irbrc or after irbrc. Simply pass Ripl.after_rc a block and it will be called later when Rails is available.