What are the 5 most innovative ruby projects/libraries?

[Camille Roux]

Hi,

I'd like to write a post on the most innovative projects in Ruby. I
think Ruby is interresting for the language itself and also for its
community and it's what I would like to show.
I tought to :
- Sinatra
- Capistrano
- Cucumber
- Shoes
- Whenever

In your opinion, what are the 5 most innovative ruby projects/libraries
?

 

[James Gray]

- Whenever

Interesting. What is this?

Can I get a link? Google wasn't too helpful.

In your opinion, what are the 5 most innovative ruby projects/
libraries?

That's a very, very hard choice to make. I think I would have trouble
if you asked for 20. I'll give it a shot though:

* The Pathname standard library: for interface design
* Rake: for classic automation done right
* Rails: for continually trendsetting
* RestClient: for making networking sexy
* Amalgalite (SQLite by extension): for super easy yet full featured
data storage

James Edward Gray II

 

[Camille Roux]

Nice choice...
I didn't know the two last ones.

Whenever is a nice library to generate cron tasks. It can even be used
with Capistrano.
http://github.com/javan/whenever/tree/master

 

[Luc Heinrich]

In your opinion, what are the 5 most innovative ruby projects/
libraries
?

- Rack
- Mongrel
- Rake
- FFI
- Threadify

 

[James Gray]

- Rack

Great choice there.

- Mongrel

Interesting. What part of this do you consider "innovative?" I'm
just curious.

- FFI

Yeah, another great choice.

- Threadify

I really like his Slave library, which is along similar lines.

James Edward Gray II

 

[Power One]

Hi,

I'd like to write a post on the most innovative projects in Ruby. I
think Ruby is interresting for the language itself and also for its
community and it's what I would like to show.
I tought to :
- Sinatra
- Capistrano
- Cucumber
- Shoes
- Whenever

In your opinion, what are the 5 most innovative ruby projects/libraries
?

Isn't rail is one of those most innovative Ruby's projects? I'm a noob
in Ruby, but I heard so much about rail, lolz.

 

[James Britt]

In your opinion, what are the 5 most innovative ruby projects/libraries

Nitro
Rack
Rake
Monkeybars
open-uri

or something.

--
James Britt

www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

 

[Camille Roux]

Isn't rail is one of those most innovative Ruby's projects? I'm a noob
in Ruby, but I heard so much about rail, lolz.

You're maybe right. Ruby has a very dynamic and powerfull community, so
there're a lot of innovative projects.
I didn't put Rails in my list for some reasons:
- Rails is composed of some separate projects : Active record, Active
resource, ... are they all innovative?
- Some part of active record are inspirated by WebObjects (from Apple)
- I don't know whether ruby community created new things for Rails or
not
- It's very famous, all rubyist know it. I prefered give less famous
projects

 

[James Gray]

- Some part of active record are inspirated by WebObjects (from Apple)

Really? I thought it was based on the Active Record pattern described
by Martin Fowler.

James Edward Gray II

 

[rick_2047]

@Camille Roux
Nobody seems to have taken notice here but shoes is not a library of
any kind. Its more like a different ruby implementation. It comes with
its own ruby fork and cannot be installed as a gem or something.

 

[Phlip]

Nobody seems to have taken notice here but shoes is not a library of

any kind. Its more like a different ruby implementation. It comes with
its own ruby fork and cannot be installed as a gem or something.

Shoes is indeed the answer to the question "if Rails is so bitchen, why isn't it
on the list of innovative ruby projects?"

Rails can't possibly innovate because it has only one purpose in the world -
linking SQL (a preexisting innovation) to HTML (another preexisting innovation).

Shoes takes the best DSL concepts from Rails, and other good projects, and then
builds a whole new platform that ignores SQL and refutes HTML.

 

[Martin DeMello]

In your opinion, what are the 5 most innovative ruby projects/libraries

Heckle is a pretty good idea that I've not seen elsewhere.
Haml is a nice rethinking of html templating
Halcyon is an interesting take on web service frameworks

and since I seem to have fallen into an alliterative pattern, check
out Hpricot and Hoe too

martin

 

[Camille Roux]

Heckle is a pretty good idea that I've not seen elsewhere.
Haml is a nice rethinking of html templating
Halcyon is an interesting take on web service frameworks

and since I seem to have fallen into an alliterative pattern, check
out Hpricot and Hoe too

Very nice choice Martin. I didn't know all of them. I note that for my
future article.
Could you explain what is Heckle and where is the innovation?

@Camille Roux
Nobody seems to have taken notice here but shoes is not a library of
any kind. Its more like a different ruby implementation. It comes with
its own ruby fork and cannot be installed as a gem or something.

ho, I didn't know that. I understand why I had curiously to use 'shoes'
to launch my project! thanks

 

[Phlip]

ho, I didn't know that. I understand why I had curiously to use 'shoes'
to launch my project! thanks

That's not the problem - lots of apps are true Ruby apps that you start with
some other name. Some apps even freeze Ruby and its libraries into themselves.

The problem (which I learned about in this thread) is the custom fork of Ruby!
I am aware that if anyone could find a technical reason to fork Ruby, Doctor Why
could. But still...

 

[Luc Heinrich]

Interesting. What part of this do you consider "innovative?" I'm
just curious.

Well, I couldn't really think of a fifth one and I *really* wanted to
give credit to something I use all the time. So yeah, maybe not
innovative in the strictest sense.

 

[Charles Oliver Nutter]

In your opinion, what are the 5 most innovative ruby projects/libraries

In no particular order (and I have 7 here):

- JRuby
- Rubinius
- MagLev
- MacRuby
- IronRuby
- RubySpec
- YARV

More than just about any other library or project, the alternative impls
represent a *tremendous* amount of work, and will do more to move Ruby
forward than anything else.

Of course I'm obviously biased toward implementation-related tech

- Charlie

 

[Martin DeMello]

You may have missed the memo, but Nokogiri recently blew Hpricot out of the
water...

Yeah yeah yeah Hpricot _was_ innovative - a XML library that focuses on all
the features real programmers actually /need/, instead of just typing in the
exact XML RFCs verbatim. Nokogiri is strictly derivative here. Yet Nokogiri
appears to have a better architecture...

Yep, nokogiri is a superb piece of work, but hpricot blazed the trail.
If we're specifically discussing *innovative* projects I'd say hpricot
gets the tip of the hat.

martin

 

[Martin DeMello]

Could you explain what is Heckle and where is the innovation?

It uses parsetree to get at the structure of your ruby code and modify
it in random but syntactically correct ways, the idea being that that
should cause a test to fail. If it doesn't, you don't have proper
coverage.

http://blog.aslakhellesoy.com/tags/heckle is a good writeup.

martin

 

[Mohit Sindhwani]

In no particular order (and I have 7 here):

- JRuby
- Rubinius
- MagLev
- MacRuby
- IronRuby
- RubySpec
- YARV

More than just about any other library or project, the alternative
impls represent a *tremendous* amount of work, and will do more to
move Ruby forward than anything else.

Of course I'm obviously biased toward implementation-related tech

Especially the first one (in no particular order)
But seriously, I think you're right! And the work you guys have done on
JRuby is commendable!
Thanks!

Cheers,
Mohit.
3/9/2009 | 4:26 PM.

 

[s.ross]

Rails can't possibly innovate because it has only one purpose in the
world - linking SQL (a preexisting innovation) to HTML (another
preexisting innovation).

That's like saying that the maglev trains can't be innovative because
they link preexisting train stations. What's innovative about maglev
is that it allows trains to achieve higher velocity through the use of
innovative technology. That argument could be made for Rails. The
trains ran before ... they just run faster now (or maybe they get
built faster, or fail less often, or ...).