Our own John Long has a very thought-provoking article over on his weblog about Rails needing something better than Engines for sharing large chunks of functionality between applications. While John and I have had a lively discussion about where the infrastructure for such sharing should live, we both agree 100% that (a) we need something better than what we have, and (b) Rails itself should at least make it easier to do things like add additional template_roots and externally define new routes. So go have a read, have a look at some of the various attempts in existence (such as Radiant’s extension system, Mephisto’s plugin infrastructure, PluginAWeek’s collection of plugins (no longer available) or the venerable Rails Engines) and lets all start brainstorming and hacking to find the best solution going forward.

Posted by Nathaniel on Dec 19th, 2006

You can still contact Nathaniel at nathaniel@terralien.com