AspectR

The concept of aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is an interesting one. In AOP, we try to deal with programming issues that crosscut the modular structure of the program. In other words, some activities or features of a system will be scattered across the system in code fragments here and there, rather than being gathered into one tidy location. We are attempting to modularize things that in traditional OOP or procedural techniques are difficult to modularize. We are working at right angles to our usual way of thinking.

Ruby certainly wasn't created specifically with AOP in mind. But it was designed to be a very flexible and dynamic language, and it is conceivable that these techniques can be facilitated by a library. In fact, there is a library called AspectR, which is an early effort at implementing AOP; see the Ruby Application Archive for the most recent version.