ruby-on-rails-plugins

I have a class class DataListBuilder include ActionView::Helpers::TagHelper include ActionView::Helpers::CaptureHelper include ActionView::Helpers::UrlHelper attr_accessor :object, :output_buffer def initialize(object) @object, @output_buffer = object, nil end def column (&block) if block_given? content_tag(:li, block.call(self)) else content_tag(:li, "") end end def options_column(&link_block) if block_given? content_tag(:li, content_tag(:dl, "<dt><a href='#'> </a></dt><dd><ul>#{link_block.call(self)}</ul></dd>".html_safe, :class=>'options')) else content_tag(:li, "") end end def link_item

As a Rails developer I feel a bit stupid asking this question but hopefully I will learn something new and someone can put me out of my misery! In my rails applications I use (other peoples) gems all the time, I also use plugins from the community or my own. I understand the benefits of use gems over plugins as they are version-able, segmented, system wide, easier to manage and share etc etc but I don't really know how to go about making a gem for my rails apps!? Do you always start with a plugin and convert it to a gem, I've seen the words 'package it as Gem'. Also the gem I'm thinking of

I'm working on a project that is considering using Cassandra as a database. We would like to eventually migrate to Cassandra even if we use MySQL to start with, given its scalability. I know that big companies like Facebook, Digg, and recently Twitter is using Cassandra, but I don't believe any of those sites run off Rails. My question is whether or not it's feasible to use Cassandra using Ruby on Rails. Points to consider: We heavily rely on the Authlogic gem. Would switching to Cassandra affect how it works? Are there any mature ruby clients for Cassandra? Looking on Github it seems that

I've recently installed Devise on a rails application, and I am wondering if it is possible to get an instance of the currently logged in user in either one of the other models or controllers, and if so, how do I do that? Devise creates convenience methods on the fly that represent your currently logged user. However you should note that the generated method name includes the class name of your user model. e.g. if your Devise model is called ' User ' then the currently logged in user can be accessed with ' current_user ', and if your Devise class is ' Admin ' then the logged in admin user can

So Rails 3.1 comes with a little-known handy "rails g plugin new" generator, which gives you a skeleton suitable for a rails gem plugin. [http://guides.rubyonrails.org/plugins.html#or-generate-a-gemified-plugin] One of the useful things this does, is set things up conveniently for testing with Test::Unit. It gives you a basic dummy Rails app that your tests can run in the context of, to test 'engine' behavior that only functions in the copy of a Rails app. (it puts it in ./test/dummy). But your tests are still in my_gem/test , the tests dont' live in the dummy app. And my_gem/test/test_helper

As I understand it, plugins are not reloaded in Rails with each request in development mode. Which makes sense, as generally you add plugins to your app and it's the app you're developing. But if you are developing a plugin, you have to restart the server with each change to the plugin which has a significant overhead. Is there any way to make Rails reload your plugin during development, the way it reloads your models and controllers? If restarting the server automatically when plugin code changes is an acceptable solution, you could use Mike Clark/topfunky's rstakeout for that, or the newer