If I were the new intern at any other company, I would most likely be fetching coffee, keeping the kitchen clean and working on the projects that nobody else wants. But here at Highgroove, things are entirely different.

First of all, I can’t even make coffee at Highgroove. Our coffee machine is not run of your run-of-the-mill drip brewer. In fact, it’s off- limits to anyone who hasn’t been trained to use it, meaning that interns have to bother full-timers when they want a cup of coffee.

That’s not the only intern cliche that has been turned on its head at Highgroove: I was asked to show up around 10 a.m. on my first day, and told to leave when I felt like I was done. Because we are a results-only work environment, what matters is getting work done. And even as the intern, I’ve got work to get done the first week that helps the company.

Getting down to work

One of the first things I did was compile a list of the most popular gems we use using my GitHub Stats script. I did this so I could familiarize myself with the various gems that Highgroove uses in our projects.

• sinatra

• nokogiri

• will_paginate

• haml

• heroku

• slim

• thin

• simple_form

• devise

• pg

• jquery-rails

And, of course, the most common one:

• rails

These are some pretty good gems that you should consider including in your new rails project template to make your life easier. I’m not brand new to rails, but hadn’t seen simple_form or slim before, and now writing views is a much happier task for me. I’m not constantly typing out < and /> over and over again.

What are the most common gems you use on your projects that the new guy would have to familiarize himself with?

Image credit: marfis75