# Project reference question

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-reference-question/105427>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 29, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-reference-question/105427 "2007-05-29T21:52:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![allen\_r](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@allen\_r](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/allen_r)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-reference-question/105427/1 "2007-05-29T21:52:35Z")

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So we decided to give Ruby a shot at the company I work at. I have a  
question regarding project structures. Maybe I’m going about this all  
wrong because I’m used to the way we do things in Java, but what I would  
like to do is have our “enterprise” ruby project that has source for all  
things enterprise related. We also have a Rails app, and I want to be  
able to reference the enterprise project classes in rails. When  
developing locally, do we need to create a Gem for the “enterprise”  
project and install that in our repo, and just have rails access that?  
And after we make changes, we run rake to update the gem? We are using  
Eclipse with RDT. It doesn’t appear that there is such a thing as a  
“Project Reference”, otherwise I would just have the rails app refer to  
the “enterprise” ruby application. I hope this is clear enough, but I’m  
just looking to see what common practice is or to see what ideas the  
community may have. Thanks.

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**Author:** ![allen\_r](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@allen\_r](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/allen_r)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 10:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-reference-question/105427/2 "2007-05-29T22:44:43Z")

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On 5/29/07, Allen R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> When developing locally, do we need to create a Gem for the “enterprise”  
> project and install that in our repo, and just have rails access that?

That should work. If you’re using Subversion as your SCM system, you  
might also consider the use of the svn:externals feature to embed the  
“enterprise” code library into your Rails application(s) code. (Other  
SCM tools may have similar features.)