Getting started with rails? Must have gems?

Question

I'm starting work on a project using Rails, but I'm waiting for the 3rd edition of the pragmatic rails book to come out before I purchase a book.

Anyway, my question is a bit more pointed than how do I get started...

What are some of the must have gems that everyone uses?

I need basic authentication, so I have the restful authentication gem, but beyond that, I don't know what I don't know. Is there a run down of this information somewhere? Some basic setup that 99% of the people start with when starting a new rails application?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

mini_magick instead of rmagick.

Answer 2

• sudo gem install haml
• sudo gem install ZenTest
• rspec on rails

Answer 3

Might want to keep an eye on: http://rubygems.org/ - you can see some interesting stats there re: most downloaded, most active, etc...

Also interesting and somewhat telling: https://github.com/languages/Ruby

Answer 4

For pagination, will_paginate.

Answer 5

The gems and plugins that I tend to use on most of my projects are:

• Restful Authentication -- For authentication
• Will Paginate -- For pagination
• Attachment Fu -- For image and file attachments
• RedCloth -- For textile rendering
• Capistrano -- For deployment

Answer 6

This is very, very subjective because it all depends on what your application does! However, I've just had a look at the Gems I have installed and the one that absolutely does leap out as mandatory is Capistrano.

BTW Restful Authentication is a Rails plugin not a Gem.