# Why did in place editing move to being in a plugin?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-did-in-place-editing-move-to-being-in-a-plugin/142323>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 6, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-did-in-place-editing-move-to-being-in-a-plugin/142323 "2008-07-06T20:40:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ron)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-did-in-place-editing-move-to-being-in-a-plugin/142323/1 "2008-07-06T20:40:12Z")

</div>

Hi,

So I just finished installing a plugin for in place editing. It works  
and everything, but I guess I’m wondering why people decided to move  
it to a plugin? I would think having it built in would remove a  
dependency that might break in the future…

Anyone know the reasoning behind the decision?

Ron

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ron)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-did-in-place-editing-move-to-being-in-a-plugin/142323/2 "2008-07-06T21:16:32Z")

</div>

Ron wrote:

> So I just finished installing a plugin for in place editing. It works  
> and everything, but I guess I’m wondering why people decided to move  
> it to a plugin? I would think having it built in would remove a  
> dependency that might break in the future…
> 
> Anyone know the reasoning behind the decision?

Any non-plugin must commit to being the One True Best Implementation of  
some  
facility. The Rails core team reduces its workload - by orders of  
magnitude -  
when they focus on ActiveRecord, the Action\* modules, and nothing else.

So if application X grows up with plugin Y, even if its maintainer  
abandons Y,  
then application Z might go with Y’s replacement, but X must continue to  
iterate  
using the last good version of Y.

So the short answer is “to foster competition among our minions”…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ron)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-did-in-place-editing-move-to-being-in-a-plugin/142323/3 "2008-07-06T22:00:33Z")

</div>

Hehe…okay, I understand now.

Since I’ve accepted the fact that I need a plugin, what plugin should  
I use?

I downloaded super in place controls, but it doesn’t seem to actually  
update my fields. Granted, I might have done something wrong–but I  
followed the install instructions carefully.

So now I’m on to ruby script/plugin install  
[http://svn.rubyonrails.org/rails/plugins/in\_place\_editing](http://svn.rubyonrails.org/rails/plugins/in_place_editing). However,  
according to [http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/10055](http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/10055)  
there’s a patch needed to get it to work. Trouble is, I don’t know  
how to install a patch. Any ideas?

Ron