# Re: What happened? **URL:** \ **Category:** Engines\ **Created:** [November 14, 2006, 11:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917 "2006-11-14T11:36:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 11:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/1 "2006-11-14T11:36:08Z")
What happened ? To this list ? To engines ? Also on [rails-engines.org](http://rails-engines.org) I now already for a few months saw no direct link anymore to the user-engine, and such. Now I know those ‘demo-engines’ were less than perfect, but I think they are perfect for experimental web-apps, that for now just needed an user-system, that can be replaced once the app’s core functionaliry is live. It’s similar to not worrying about code optimizations and scaling untill they start to matter. Also I think engines are in sync with the OpenSource philosophy of small tools that do well what they do. And their current non-perfect state is also not against release early and often. (also see: [http://en.logilogi.org/MetaLogi/TheWebCanBeOpenSource](http://en.logilogi.org/MetaLogi/TheWebCanBeOpenSource)) So please be proud about engines again, and show it on the site! Wybo ---
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 11:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/2 "2006-11-14T11:48:12Z")
On 11/14/06, Wybo W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > What happened ? > > To this list ? To engines ? Yes, I also have the same concern. rails-engines is used by active\_rbac, which in turn is used by me. activeRbac is a very nice engine BTW. – Hendy I. Web: [http://hendy.gauldong.net](http://hendy.gauldong.net) Mobile: +62 856 24889899 Yahoo Messenger: ceefour666 ---
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 12:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/3 "2006-11-14T12:18:20Z")
On 11/14/06, Hendy I. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On 11/14/06, Wybo W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > What happened ? > > > > To this list ? To engines ? Unless I missed the memo, nothing’s happened to either this list, or to the engines plugin - they’re both still here, still working, right? 🙂 The website was re-worked because it suffered heavily from wiki spam, to the point where it was essentially un-usable as a source of documentation. The reason the focus was taken off the login/user engines is because I felt that it was important to distinguish between a) using the engines plugin as a tool for more powerful reuse in your own development and b) providing a set of drop in components. The former is the more correct, and the latter what inspires all the negative attention that engines recieve. This does not in any way prohibit other people from speaking about or promoting any of those specific engines; just that I no longer have the time or energy to fight the uphill struggle against thought-followers who believe that engines are _just_ the login/user engines, are high level components, are evil, and so on. Regarding login or user engines, at the moment, I’m not very happy with them because they represent old code (much of which I didn’t even write) which isn’t as nice to use as I might like. Others are already on the case here (search this list for ‘hark’, for instance, and of course there is ActiveRBAC). I’d much prefer it if I personally could focus on the development of the engines plugin, and leave the actual engine implementations to others in the community. What do you think? Also, with the upcoming release of Rails 1.2, the distinction between engines and plugins will hopefully basically disappear. Now that I have an ‘official’ mechanism to control the order that plugins are loaded, there’s no need for Engines.start, and all the features that the engines plugin provides can be made available to any plugin that needs them. This might result an erosion of meaning for the word ‘engine’ as applied to any particular chunk of shareable code - we’d just have plugins that make use of engine-plugin features. The ‘pluginaweek’ guys have the right idea - to an extent at least. I still feel that every ‘feature’ that the engines plugin provides makes sense as a coherent, single package, and they got a few things quite wrong in their recent criticism - see my reply on [rails-engines.org](http://rails-engines.org) if you’re interested. As for activity on the lists, well - that’s up to you guys! - James ---
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 12:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/4 "2006-11-14T12:46:24Z")
On 11/14/06, James A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > a) using the engines plugin as a tool for more powerful reuse in your > own development yes this is what I think the best way > and of course there is ActiveRBAC). I’d much prefer it if I personally > could focus on the development of the engines plugin, and leave the > actual engine implementations to others in the community. What do you > think? I totally agree. If engines can work with other ‘hack’ plugins, such as MasterView & theme\_support, it’d be great. Is there such thing as engine\_image\_tag ? > ‘pluginaweek’ guys have the right idea - to an extent at least. I > still feel that every ‘feature’ that the engines plugin provides makes > sense as a coherent, single package, and they got a few things quite > wrong in their recent criticism - see my reply on [rails-engines.org](http://rails-engines.org) if > you’re interested. I’m somewhat on your “side”. I see it’s quite ‘weird’ that I have to install several different plugins just to have the ability of rails-engine. If only Rails core guys accept this kind of proposal into standard Rails distro, we wouldn’t have such different projects aiming at the same thing… – Hendy I. Web: [http://hendy.gauldong.net](http://hendy.gauldong.net) Mobile: +62 856 24889899 Yahoo Messenger: ceefour666 ---
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/5 "2006-11-14T13:50:31Z")
> The reason the focus was taken off the login/user engines is because I > felt that it was important to distinguish between > > a) using the engines plugin as a tool for more powerful reuse in your > own development > > and > > b) providing a set of drop in components. The point is that the engines-plugin is much less usefull without the availability of drop in components. > The former is the more correct, and the latter what inspires all the > negative attention that engines recieve. This does not in any way > prohibit other people from speaking about or promoting any of those > specific engines; just that I no longer have the time or energy to > fight the uphill struggle against thought-followers who believe that > engines are _just_ the login/user engines, are high level components, > are evil, and so on. The anti-engines arguments are just plain stupid, because they assume that everyone is smart enough to, or has time to implement yet another perfect user-system. Especially the Login-engine just works, and extendability is neat as it is. And sometimes worse is just better (as Chad F. said in a presentation in Delft lately). If code-reuse is usefull between your own projects then it most likely is also between projects of different people. Sharing code is the core of Open Source, and Engines allow this in a neat, aspect-oriented way. It just must be clear that engines are to be opiniated and have convention over configuration, just like Rails itself. Note also that Engines are a great resource for Rails-Noobs to learn from, to borrow code from, or to get started with. > Regarding login or user engines, at the moment, I’m not very happy > with them because they represent old code (much of which I didn’t > even write) which isn’t as nice to use as I might like. Others are > already on the case here (search this list for ‘hark’, for instance, > and of course there is ActiveRBAC). I’d much prefer it if I personally > could focus on the development of the engines plugin, and leave the > actual engine implementations to others in the community. What do you > think? I think that [rails-engines.org](http://rails-engines.org) could be a lot more usefull, and gain a lot more positive attention if it also listed available engines. Now I am not saying that it should immediately become the [freshmeat.net](http://freshmeat.net) for rails engines, but a simple list, as there was on the old site, would already be much better. > sense as a coherent, single package, and they got a few things quite > wrong in their recent criticism - see my reply on [rails-engines.org](http://rails-engines.org) if > you’re interested. I already read that blog-post, and your reply yesterday. I agree that the engines-plugin offers a coherent set of features, but I think that now with plugins being able to do most things engines do, the idea of engines becomes even more important than the engines-plugin itself. Making [rails-engines.org](http://rails-engines.org) less defensive in its tone, and making it a place where people can find engines too, seems a good step to me. Wybo ---
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/6 "2006-11-14T20:25:44Z")
On 11/14/06, James A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’d much prefer it if I personally > could focus on the development of the engines plugin, and leave the > actual engine implementations to others in the community. What do you > think? I think that is a great idea! > sense as a coherent, single package, and they got a few things quite > wrong in their recent criticism - see my reply on [rails-engines.org](http://rails-engines.org) if > you’re interested. What exactly is happening in Rails 1.2. Are Rails’ plugins essentially evolving into full functioning engines? Thanks, Peter ---
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 3:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/7 "2006-11-15T15:44:18Z")
On 11/15/06, Wybo W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Also see this blog-post by David, about not to bend too far for > criticism: [http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000600.html](http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000600.html) Yup, definitely 🙂 > And if you don’t want the LoginEngine (& maybe UserEngine), then plz > turn them into orphanaged RubyForge projects, so others can pick them > up if they want to improve them… That’s an interesting idea, Wybo. What does everyone else think about this? ---
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 4:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/8 "2006-11-16T04:48:35Z")
On 11/15/06, James A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > And if you don’t want the LoginEngine (& maybe UserEngine), then plz > > turn them into orphanaged RubyForge projects, so others can pick them > > up if they want to improve them… > > That’s an interesting idea, Wybo. What does everyone else think about this? I have to agree. I personally wish that James A. will be my Rails Engines _engine_ (I mean, plugin) hero, not the do-it-all handyman who spawns every possible use of engine at his disposal. LoginEngine & UserEngine may be good for… (forgive me) “demo” of Engines’ capabilities, but “real” tasks should be left to individual developers so e.g. ActiveRBAC can live a happy life. If you somehow “bundle” (even if just virtually, by putting your engines in your site, although not directly inside engines plugin distribution) your own Engines, they seem like they’re “official” engines, and other engines that serve the same purpose is “inferioriated”. I take it you don’t want to be the next Microsoft but in the Rails world 🙂 (Windows Media Player, MSIE, Movie Maker, … aren’t they “engines”?) – Hendy I. Web: [http://hendy.gauldong.net](http://hendy.gauldong.net) Mobile: +62 856 24889899 Yahoo Messenger: ceefour666 ---
**Author:** ![wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/cc9497/32.png) [@wybo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wybo)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 2:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-what-happened/75917/9 "2006-11-15T14:21:54Z")
Also see this blog-post by David, about not to bend too far for criticism: [http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000600.html](http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000600.html) And if you don’t want the LoginEngine (& maybe UserEngine), then plz turn them into orphanaged RubyForge projects, so others can pick them up if they want to improve them… Wybo – :🧑‍🎓 - History, Informatiekunde (computer linguistics, IR, webtech) and Philosophy - Member of the Center for Metahistory Groningen ([Faculty of Arts | About us | University of Groningen](http://www.rug.nl/let/cmg)) ::Free Software and Open Source Developer: - [http://www.LogiLogi.org](http://www.LogiLogi.org), innovative system for cumulative, shared commenting, publication and idea sharing: Web as it should be… - ComLinToo, a computational linguistics toolset written in Perl - Lake ([LogiLogi.org](http://LogiLogi.org) Make), a make-replacement using makefiles in pure C++ ::Being: - In the world, go figure ([http://nl.logilogi.org/HomE/WyboWiersma](http://nl.logilogi.org/HomE/WyboWiersma))