app-specific plugin architecture / system / plan-of-attack?

Hi everyone -

I’ve been working on a rails app for the past few years and always keep coming back to the fact that a lot of the functionality I’ve wanted to include could have been much easier to develop if I had put together something akin to plugins for the app itself. Stuff I could just turn on and off instead of just hacking it into the site itself. In addition to that point - there are a lot of user and group specific areas that should be customizable enough for said users, or groups, to pick and choose which “modules” they want to interact with.

Which brings me to my question - before I jump in and write something from scratch, has there been anything created already that either helps the process of writing app-specific “plugins” … a gem or rails plugin maybe … or just something of a theory in which someone should stick to while writing said plugin architecture?

I guess the thing which I most want to emulate is how the plugin architecture in WordPress works. Has anyone done something similar?

Thanks so much!

  • J