As a Rails newbie, I am not sure how to feel about methods that have
been moved into plugins. Why are they moved into plugins in the first
place? Should I use the plugin if it wasn’t good enough to keep in the
core code?
It was moved out of the core because the functionality is not core
functionality. The plugins (acts_as_list / acts_as_tree) are the same,
and
just as supported. It’s all about consistency, that code fits better as
plugins.
Jason
So using code that has been moved out from rails into plugins is not a
bad idea? I’m afraid of learning how to use them and building apps w/
them and later find out that there is a better way to do it and that
is why it was removed in the first place.
That being said, I would be really hesitant to use the “classic”
pagination
plugin instead of the recommended will_paginate [or it’s less
appreciated
but equally awesome sister paginating_find]. There’s a reason pagination
was
taken out of Rails core based on inefficiency.
RSL
Well, the concern you’ve got here is slightly different. Unfortunately
with
software, this happens all the time, and Rails is a constantly evolving
library. Something that might be The Way (aka REST right now), may in a
few
months time be replaced with something better. You can’t be afraid of
this
or you’ll never get any work done. Work with what’s available now, and
as
things change you can move with the changes or you can stay with the
older
versions, which will still work.
Jason
The classic pagination is the only one off hand that I can think of that
was
specifically deprecated because Rails core found it to be suboptimal.
IIRC
the others were moved to plugins because they were deemed to be
peripheral
functionality. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong there. 
RSL
Are there other plugins you would recommend staying away from?
~ mel