[LRUG] plugin ideas for Rails - suggestions wanted!

[Tom Stuart]

On 25 Sep 2007, at 08:07, David Salgado wrote:
> Didn't DHH demo very similar functionality as part of Rails 2.0?

ruby-debug gives similar benefits, but (of course) isn't browser- 
based. Much closer is something like Gyre -- its site, http:// 
gyre.bitscribe.net/, doesn't seem to be working at the moment, but  
http://www.rubyinside.com/gyre-web-based-ide-and-debugger-for- 
rails-383.html is a good overview.

Alan: it's quite unusual to sit down and write a plugin from scratch.  
Typically they're extractions from real applications, e.g. somebody  
has needed (say) OpenID functionality, built it into their app, and  
then factored out all of the OpenID code into a plugin for  
distribution. This might not be technically true in all cases but  
it's usually conceptually true: even if a plugin is in fact developed  
as a plugin rather than as part of an app, it's almost always with  
the intention of plugging a specific hole in a specific context,  
rather than in a "hmm, maybe it'd be fun to write a plugin to do..."  
sort of way.

I suppose this is a roundabout way of saying that, if you want to  
develop a plugin for some feature that Rails doesn't provide, I'd  
recommend that you do it by trying to build a Rails application that  
needs that feature, and then pluginify the fruits of your labour.

Cheers,
-Tom