Ruby on Rails: Is it better to use outdated plugin, or use your own code?

Question

When you are facing with this kind of dilemma, what do you usually do, and why?

In my case, I want to create a user authorization system that works with facebook connect and openID.

Authlogic is working, but unfortunately authlogic-openid is no longer supported (they really should clean up ancient codes on github!)

Thanks!

Answer 1

It's better to use whatever works.

During the time you're building website, luck of continuous development shouldn't be a problem: you just need to see whether this version works.
And if later in production, for example, facebook outdates part of its API, you'll have lots of time to find solution.

There's general philosophy behind it, which I summarize as "do not solve problem before it appears" :)

Answer 2

You're just going to have to make an assessment. It's not like the plugin is going to stop working one day (barring changes to OpenID or something), but it may limit which versions of Rails you'll be able to use it with. If you think that its limitations are a problem, then find another solution.

Thankfully, most plugins aren't that big. You can usually extract the functionality you need and keep it up to date yourself without that much work. But it is work, and it takes time. So whether it's worth it to you is really up to you.

Answer 3

Hi jaycode

I I think the best way is to contribute to the existing plugin with your required code implementation. Advantages are

1 - you will get what you want

2 - Plugin will be more rich and active

3 - You will not repeat the work that plugin authors has done already (which saves your time)

Thanks

cheers

sameera