Since most activity logging solutions out there are either complex or require controller hacking i based this new dead-simple activity logging plugin on userstamps.

Thats 16LOC for complete activity logging…

Record Activities Rails plugin

class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
  stampable
  record_activities #same as record_activities  :create, :update
end
Comment.create! -> Activity(:subject=>comment,:actor=>current_user,:action=>'create')

Just released random records plugin on github.

Model.random(3) == [Model(id:112),Model(id:113),Model(id:114)]
Model.random(1) == [Model(id:322)]
Model.random == Model(id:234)

#with named scopes
Model.online.usefull.random(3) == ...

For tests we have the `fixtures :all`. But for other usages fixture loading is idiotically hard…

Fixtures.create_fixtures(folder, file) should just load all when no file is given, but alas we have to do this ourselves…

#Load all fixtures
Fixtures.reset_cache  #only needed when you reload them
fixtures_folder = File.join(RAILS_ROOT, 'spec', 'fixtures')
fixtures = Dir[File.join(fixtures_folder, '*.yml')].map {|f| File.basename(f, '.yml') }
Fixtures.create_fixtures(fixtures_folder, fixtures)

UPDATE: always use “# YourClassName::manifest some-text” in the comments, or the task will not be found

If you have rake tasks and you work TDD then your doing it wrong!
Use TAP! Its like rake but auto-documenting + testable + awesome!

See the presentation!
See the slides.
See the website!
See the repo!

gem install tap

(If you really want to go crazy with sequenced task and all kinds of logic-task-chaining, this is possible too.)

The slides from last nights ‘Ruby User Group Berlin’ meeting.
It is practically a summary of the most recent post here plus examples.

viewed or download.