The next time you’re wondering whether to submit some experimental ticket to Rails, build a plugin instead.

• First, it’s much easier to keep track of changes yourself. Trust me, subversion or darcs makes for a much better version control system than a trac ticket.
• It’s a lot easier to get folks using your work. It’s not exactly trivial for someone to download and patch their rails. However, it is a snap to dump some files in vendor/plugins to try it out.
• Real-world use gives your plugin a chance to evolve as necessary. Nothing proves the validity of your plugin’s features than working, tested code in live applications.
• If the plugin is accepted into core, the plugin provides an upgrade path for users on older versions of rails.
• If the plugin is not accepted, you still have a simple way to utilize this functionality in your applications.

If you’ve never written a plugin before, Rails Recipes by Chad contains a chapter that I contributed on the very subject. I’d highly recommend picking it up for the 70 other recipes. There are other free resources too, starting with the Rails Wiki and lots of existing plugins to look from.