Joel Dezenzio's Profile

Datatables is so much cleaner and provides multi-column searching. I have also created custom classes to define how datatables searches using some of the examples from one of your previous railscasts Ryan. Sometimes when it aint broke, don't fix it. :)

I have been using datatables since it first came out and rely on its features for all my statistical production sites. Even though I love watching all of the railscasts produced here, I don't find this one particularly rewarding. I find my own use of streamlined helpers to be enough to work with and extend any of the datatables features.

One noticeable trend I'm finding others do, which I will not, is to become too dependent on gems that aren't necessary. jQuery UI, datatables, and a host of other jQuery related feature code works great right out of the box. Some gem authors update their code and keep it up to date, and others fall off and forget their code after time. Becoming too dependent on gems for features that are clearly outlined and easily usable out of the box seems counter-productive to me.

These are just my thoughts.