I USE IN ALMOST EVERY SAAS PROJECT
An application can only be as good as the features it is providing for its end-users. Every developer toes the line between indiscriminately adding gems and building new functionality themselves. When time is of the essence, these are the gems I reach for:
- local_time — An relatively older gem and stable, but this is a gem that includes a view helper and javascript helper to display relative time (i.e. ‘updated 2 minutes ago’)
- Devise- Devise is still the go-to gem for authentication in most Rails apps. Its ease of use and existing features make it dead-simple to add authentication. For those looking for a simpler gem with a smaller footprint, Authlogic gets a runner up in this list for authentication.
- Interactor — When you start to follow the Service Object pattern, adding Interactor can help guide the context and result of those objects through a common interface.
- Rolify and cancancan - Rolify allows us to assign roles such as User or Admin then CanCanCan will enable us to take those roles and apply authorization policies. However, there is a case for Pundit for those who like the Policy Object approach’s simplicity.
- Lockbox — When you need to encrypt data in your database for compliance or even client security…
