From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2006-03-22T14:59:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Rails vs. Ruby Evolution

From: <gwtmp01@mac.com>
>
> I noticed a number of extensions to the core ruby classes:
> 
> Object#to_json
> Enumerable#group_by
> Array#in_groups_of
> Hash#to_xml
> Array#to_xml
> Object#extended_by
> 
> and so on.  Earlier versions of Rails also have lots of extensions to  
> the core libraries.
> 
> Is anyone else concerned that the rapid evolution and adoption of  
> Rails is de facto
> forking the core and standard libraries of Ruby?

On the other hand, one of the things I love about Ruby is that
applications and libraries are *allowed* to extend core classes.

I don't know Rails well enough, but I wouldn't be surprised if
they've factored these extensions into a library one could
require separately/independently from Rails?

I like the approach taken by Nitro ( http://www.nitrohq.com/ )
which seems to be working in close collaboration with the facets
( http://facets.rubyforge.org/ ) library.  I'm just learning
Nitro, but from what I've read, they seem to be consciously
factoring their core extensions out to the facets library where
appropriate, which makes those extensions available for anyone
to use, on a method-by-method granularity.  Neat.  :)


Regards,

Bill