The acts_as_rated plugin (see also: rdoc, github) just saved me hours of work.  Ruby is a (really, really) great language and Rails is a great framework, but I’m quickly realizing that the Ruby and Rails communities are more valuable than either of those two points.  There is a true spirit of sharing.  Everyone is working on their own projects, but they always seem to pull out the really useful bits and publish them as gems or as Rails plugins.  To me, this is what open source is all about.

I’m not 100% sure why this community seems so much more enthusiastic about sharing than other language or framework oriented communities, but I do have some ideas.  Maybe I’ll explore that later.