Captain Planet

YML sucks. When configs are implemented in YML, a lot of code is written that interprets the YML values into various classes and configuration points in the application. Captain Planet saves the environment by doing away with YML by exposing classes in a way that can be configured with blocks.

Example Configuration

class MyEnv < CaptainPlanet::Environment
  attr_accessor :webdav_mount_root, :webdav_url
  
  def initialize
    webdav_mount_root = '/default/'
    webdav_url = 'http://www.com/default/'
  end
end

Environment = CaptainPlanet::Builder.new(MyEnv, %{
  env 'production' do |prod|
    prod.webdav_mount_root = '/Volumes/localhost'
    prod.webdav_url = 'http://localhost:5000/'
  end
  
  env 'development' do |dev|
    dev.webdav_mount_root = '/Volumes/www.polleverywhere.com'
    dev.webdav_url = 'http://www.polleverywhere.com/'
  end
})[ENV['ENV'] || 'development']

It Gets Even better!

There are some smart defaults for setting up environments in a project. For example, a folder structure typically mimics that like what's found in rails:

config
  |- environment.rb
  |- environments
      |- production.rb
      |- development.rb
      |- test.rb

Why not mimic that? That's exactly where I thought too. Just define your configuration class and its defaults in your environments.rb file.

class QTZEnv < CaptainPlanet::Environment
  attr_accessor :webdav_mount_root, :webdav_url, :polling_interval, :default_permalink

  def initialize
    self.webdav_mount_root = '/default/'
    self.webdav_url        = 'http://www.com/default/'
    self.polling_interval  = 3.0
  end
end

Then initialize the Environment with CaptainPlanet and point it at the ./environments folder:

Environment = CaptainPlanet::Builder.process(QTZEnv, File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), './environments/*.rb'))[ENV['ENV'] || 'development']

And finally use anywhere in your application!

Environment.webdav_mount_root # => '/default/'

The best part? You get full control over how the environment is bootstrapped, from the defaults to how the environment is specified, and you can configure your application dynamically through the power of the Ruby language.

Repeat after me, "YAML sucks".