I agree with Tim too, I might never use the code again. This blog is in WordPress and it was a bit of a pain copy+pasting the resulting string into the blog. Also, it was a relatively unique source – Google Groups search. Another example of a useful source to scrap from might be del.icio.us.

I developed it as a gem because that to me is good Ruby lib development – the tests are paired with the libraries.

I’ll certainly be amused by the first other person to actually use the gem

Note there are so many usability problems with this approach when you don’t tell people where the links point.

More info at Justaddwater.dk: Blog Usability: Linking.

Rails is about teaching developers good habits, and with all respect for the ease and elegancy of your code, you are actually making it easy for Rails developers to jump through hoops and break usability rules.

As this is available as a gem makes it even worse — it’s even easier to break basic usability rules.

Just my comment for this, as I think that Rails will be better if we focus on making it easy to develop web apps that are developed fast, and follow certain conventions: Both the traditional rails conventions, but also the basic usability conventions