Queue_Classic and Mechanize Gems

Creating a list of useful (indeed very useful) gems for future reference. We used following gems recently in our rails apps (actually products & tools) that we are developing for our clients.

1) queue_classic - Though we have used Redis Resque, RabbitMQ in three to four apps in past but for this specific requirement we wanted to rely on fast, low maintenance message queue providing a simple and intuitive user experience. It is built upon PostgreSQL to avoid the necessity of adding redis or 0MQ on heroku. Yeah queue_classic doesn't increase any database load contrary its pretty efficient due to usage of inherently reliable PostgreSQL methods where PostgresSQL has many wonderful feature such as  Listen/Notify. (even Oracle too supports listen/notify.) Thus, to avoid resque worker running on heroku and due to its sheer simplicity, we opted for queue_classic. BTW, queue_classic is extensively used by Heroku Postgres team to monitor the health of their customer databases processing hundreds of jobs per second.

RailCasts - http://railscasts.com/episodes/344-queue-classic 
Source page and more information is at - https://github.com/ryandotsmith/queue_classic

2) Mechanize - What a wonderful gem we must say :) Well we have done lots of scrapping but mechanize is really handy to automate interaction with websites. We are building a tool (web based) for an enterprise to automate large number of routine and regular tasks for their helpdesk support staff. Mechanize scripts helps us execute these routine tasks that saves a ton of time for the support team.

RailCasts - http://railscasts.com/episodes/191-mechanize
Source page and more information is at https://github.com/tenderlove/mechanize