Rails - Jul 2006 - why I don''t like to use some 3rd party plugins

I''m not a professional developer in the sense that I''ve had
any formal
training or experience. I taught myself programming two years ago and have 
since moved to ruby and shortly after to rails - even now, i only develop as 
a hobby. This means that a lot of developer best practises are foreign or 
unknown to me, that''s why I love rails so much. You learn so much just
by
using it.

The reason I don''t like using 3rd party plugins is I have no idea how
well
written they are. When the plugin comes from a well known ruby or rails 
developer, I''m quite happy to use it under the assumption that the
author
knows what they are doing. When I have no idea about the author''s 
credentials however, I tend to shy away. I can inspect the source code all 
day but I''m still not comfortable enough with my own skills and
experience
to evaluate it properly - I don''t know how well written the plugin is,
how
stable it is or how secure it is.

I understand that the core team wants to keep rails very focused, and 
plugins are a great solution for extending the functionality, but I think 
there needs to be some "official" repository of plugins. This would
host
only the plugins that have been extensively documented and tested by the 
rails community (not necassarily by the core team who are busy with other 
things) and shown to be good enough for production use. a kind of "rails 
compatible" scheme.

I''d love to hear what others think.
alan

What I like about the RoR community is that people are willing to share
their code.  Plugins make sharing solutions, or progamming aids easy.
Plugins make my work easier, as well. I''m willing to take the risk. If
a
plugin doesn''t work to my satisfaction, I can fix it myself, ask the
developer to fix it, or uninstall it.   The accepted review/certification
procedure is to [ANN] the release of the plugin on this list.  Interested
readers then check it out and offer feedback.  This friendly, supportive
atmosphere provides the community with working solutions to common problems
much faster than a rigid ''certification'' program would.
- Larry

On 7/13/06, Alan Bullock <liststuff@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I''m not a professional developer in the sense that I''ve
had any formal
> training or experience. I taught myself programming two years ago and have
> since moved to ruby and shortly after to rails - even now, i only develop
> as
> a hobby. This means that a lot of developer best practises are foreign or
> unknown to me, that''s why I love rails so much. You learn so much
just by
> using it.
>
> The reason I don''t like using 3rd party plugins is I have no idea
how well
> written they are. When the plugin comes from a well known ruby or rails
> developer, I''m quite happy to use it under the assumption that the
author
> knows what they are doing. When I have no idea about the author''s
> credentials however, I tend to shy away. I can inspect the source code all
> day but I''m still not comfortable enough with my own skills and
experience
> to evaluate it properly - I don''t know how well written the plugin
is, how
> stable it is or how secure it is.
>
> I understand that the core team wants to keep rails very focused, and
> plugins are a great solution for extending the functionality, but I think
> there needs to be some "official" repository of plugins. This
would host
> only the plugins that have been extensively documented and tested by the
> rails community (not necassarily by the core team who are busy with other
> things) and shown to be good enough for production use. a kind of
"rails
> compatible" scheme.
>
> I''d love to hear what others think.
> alan
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>


-- 
Best Regards,
-Larry
"Work, work, work...there is no satisfactory alternative."
            --- E.Taft Benson
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I agree. The added advantage we have as well is of course that they are 
written in Ruby, which makes it relatively easy to understand how the 
plugins work, and how to modify them if we want or need to. One of the 
reasons I like the acts_as_authenticated plugin, for example, is that 
it''s very easy to adapt to your own requirements.

Larry Kelly wrote:
> What I like about the RoR community is that people are willing to 
> share their code.  Plugins make sharing solutions, or progamming aids 
> easy.  Plugins make my work easier, as well. I''m willing to take
the
> risk. If a plugin doesn''t work to my satisfaction, I can fix it 
> myself, ask the developer to fix it, or uninstall it.   The accepted 
> review/certification procedure is to [ANN] the release of the plugin 
> on this list.  Interested readers then check it out and offer 
> feedback.  This friendly, supportive atmosphere provides the community 
> with working solutions to common problems much faster than a rigid 
> ''certification'' program would. 
> - Larry
>
> On 7/13/06, *Alan Bullock* <liststuff@gmail.com 
> <mailto:liststuff@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     I''m not a professional developer in the sense that
I''ve had any formal
>     training or experience. I taught myself programming two years ago
>     and have
>     since moved to ruby and shortly after to rails - even now, i only
>     develop as
>     a hobby. This means that a lot of developer best practises are
>     foreign or
>     unknown to me, that''s why I love rails so much. You learn so
much
>     just by
>     using it.
>
>     The reason I don''t like using 3rd party plugins is I have no
idea
>     how well
>     written they are. When the plugin comes from a well known ruby or
>     rails
>     developer, I''m quite happy to use it under the assumption that
the
>     author
>     knows what they are doing. When I have no idea about the
author''s
>     credentials however, I tend to shy away. I can inspect the source
>     code all
>     day but I''m still not comfortable enough with my own skills
and
>     experience
>     to evaluate it properly - I don''t know how well written the
plugin
>     is, how
>     stable it is or how secure it is.
>
>     I understand that the core team wants to keep rails very focused, and
>     plugins are a great solution for extending the functionality, but
>     I think
>     there needs to be some "official" repository of plugins. This
>     would host
>     only the plugins that have been extensively documented and tested
>     by the
>     rails community (not necassarily by the core team who are busy
>     with other
>     things) and shown to be good enough for production use. a kind of
>     "rails
>     compatible" scheme.
>
>     I''d love to hear what others think.
>     alan
>
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Rails mailing list
>     Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org <mailto:Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org>
>     http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Best Regards,
> -Larry
> "Work, work, work...there is no satisfactory alternative."
>             --- E.Taft Benson
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

I host a directory for plugins at http://www.agilewebdevelopment.com/ 
plugins that allows people to rank them (1-5 stars).  By seeing the  
rankings of and number of votes for the plugins listed in the  
directory, you can get an idea of what others have thought of their  
usefulness/quality.

I don''t believe anyone should be a gatekeeper that plugin authors  
have to satisfy to get their plugins out there, but I do believe the  
ranking system helps answer your request to know something about the  
quality of a plugin before trying it out yourself.

--
Benjamin Curtis
http://www.bencurtis.com/
http://www.tesly.com/ -- Collaborative test case management
http://www.agilewebdevelopment.com/ -- Resources for the Rails community



On Jul 13, 2006, at 1:28 AM, Alan Bullock wrote:
> I''m not a professional developer in the sense that I''ve
had any formal
> training or experience. I taught myself programming two years ago  
> and have
> since moved to ruby and shortly after to rails - even now, i only  
> develop as
> a hobby. This means that a lot of developer best practises are  
> foreign or
> unknown to me, that''s why I love rails so much. You learn so much
> just by
> using it.
>
> The reason I don''t like using 3rd party plugins is I have no idea
> how well
> written they are. When the plugin comes from a well known ruby or  
> rails
> developer, I''m quite happy to use it under the assumption that the
> author
> knows what they are doing. When I have no idea about the author''s
> credentials however, I tend to shy away. I can inspect the source  
> code all
> day but I''m still not comfortable enough with my own skills and  
> experience
> to evaluate it properly - I don''t know how well written the plugin
> is, how
> stable it is or how secure it is.
>
> I understand that the core team wants to keep rails very focused, and
> plugins are a great solution for extending the functionality, but I  
> think
> there needs to be some "official" repository of plugins. This
would
> host
> only the plugins that have been extensively documented and tested  
> by the
> rails community (not necassarily by the core team who are busy with  
> other
> things) and shown to be good enough for production use. a kind of  
> "rails
> compatible" scheme.
>
> I''d love to hear what others think.
> alan
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
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Your assumption is that if it''s not from a known source, it''s
an
unknown.  But that''s only because you don''t yet have the
experience to
judge the quality of the code for yourself.   But even that aside, a
lot of very good programmers can''t even agree between themselves half
the time on the best way to do things.  I''d rather not see access to
plugins limited by either of these scenarios.   Let me decide what''s
good for me, and if someone else needs assistance in making that
decision, well that''s what lists like this are for.  If you have a
question about a plugin that''s actually being used, you will probably
get good advice from this list or others like it.