Rails Plugins: Extending Rails Beyond the Core

Chapter 5. The Rest (README, install.rb, Rakefile, tasks, and More)

The two previous sections discussed the two key elements that define a plugin: the init.rb file and the lib directory. This section explores the other files that are created automatically by the plugin generator, with the exception of the test folder, which is covered in more detail in Section 8.

README—Capitalized for a Good Reason	52
install.rb and uninstall.rb	53
uninstall.rb (Edge Rails Only)	55
about.yml (Edge Rails Only)	55
Rake and Plugins	56
Rakefile versus tasks/—What’s the Difference?	60
Summary	60

README—Capitalized for a Good Reason

If there is one thing every developer should do more of, it’s writing documentation. The plugin generator subtly reminds us of this by automatically ...