Sequel's lackluster to_*

Sequel is a great bare-bones ORM, but the bare-bones quality of Sequel::Model leave something to be desired. For instance the obj.to_json method just calls the default ruby object inspect method, which prints out the class name and memory space. Not helpful. Also no to_xml() for easy REST incorporation. Almost makes me want to go back to ActiveRecord, but then what's the point in using Merb?

Anywho, it's not that hard to extend the functionality of Sequel::Model, so I have started writing some gems to make development with Merb + Sequel a little easier. Like real to_xml & to_json methods on the model instances and instance collections. More on this as it develops.

Merb TLS mail plugin gem

UPDATE: Now available on github : merb_tlsmail github page

My previous post on sending mail via a TLS SMTP server on merb covered monkey patching Merb::Mailer.

I took the time to code this up as a gem, using Merb's meta-programming routines to extend Merb:Mailer in a standard way (for merb that is). See this open ticket in the Merb lighthouse issue tracker to download the gem until it is released as a proper plugin.

Secure SMTP server (TLS) from merb apps

It seems that Merb's Mailer class is either using a local sendmail client or a non-TLS enabled SMTP server. This is not a unique problem to merb, but rather a deficiency in Ruby 1.8.

I took some time to look around and found that Rails has the same problem, and it was fixed via a plugin, not a gem as is the "merb way". There was also a gem that packaged the Net::SMTP classes from Ruby 1.9, which do have TLS support. It isn't hard to guess what I did next.

I monkey punched Merb::Mailer to overwrite the net_smtp method and added two config options into merb_init.rb. See the pastie for the code example here.

http://pastie.caboo.se/151190