Rails - Jan 2006 - Best way to execute timed actions?

I''ve seen this come up a few times before on this list but never felt  
it got a satisfactory answer.  What is the best way to execute timed  
actions?  Examples include sending an email each week, calculating  
interest each day, or cleaning up your database or server files.

This wiki page has some ideas, but these seem a bit extreme.
	http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToRunBackgroundJobsInRails

I''ve also seen people suggest using cron to execute script/runner:
	script/runner -e production "Model.some_method()"

It seems to me you could also have cron execute a wget to a page like:
	wget http://www.domain.com/controller/action/id

And I vaguely remember someone saying they were working on a better  
solution (as a plugin?).

What are people actually using?  What works best?

Thanks,
Kevin Skoglund

On 1/19/06, Kevin Skoglund <kevin@pixelandpress.com>
wrote:
> I''ve seen this come up a few times before on this list but never
felt
> it got a satisfactory answer.  What is the best way to execute timed
> actions?  Examples include sending an email each week, calculating
> interest each day, or cleaning up your database or server files.
>
> This wiki page has some ideas, but these seem a bit extreme.
>        
http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToRunBackgroundJobsInRails
>
> I''ve also seen people suggest using cron to execute script/runner:
>         script/runner -e production "Model.some_method()"
>
> It seems to me you could also have cron execute a wget to a page like:
>         wget http://www.domain.com/controller/action/id
>
> And I vaguely remember someone saying they were working on a better
> solution (as a plugin?).
>
> What are people actually using?  What works best?
>
Personally I just use cron, rather than what is suggested in that Wiki page.
The cron task runs a script that requires ../config/boot.rb, and then
away it goes.

This is probably the plugin you were thinking of, and it does look cool:
http://opensvn.csie.org/rails_cron/trunk/README