I have been doing a bit of work with Rails 1.2.6 recently and I am missing one feature that I use regularly in Rails 2.1 and that is rake notes.
I use # TODO comments as todo list items within my code and then call rake notes to review them.
I find it really useful for putting todo items in context with the actual related code and being a bit forgetful, I can also use them as reminders to refactor and optimise bits of code later.
I have recently started using RSpec at work and was frustrated that I could not create notes in my spec files. So I extracted out the functionality of the rake notes task from Rails 2.1 and put it in a handy self contained rake file to be included into 1.2.6.
I then edited the directories that it searches to include the spec and story directories.
Done! rake notes for Rails 1.2.6 with Rspec.
Usage
Drop the code snippet below in its own rake file and put it in your lib/tasks directory, then rake spec:notes to see all your notes.
spec_notes.rake gist on github
I will warn you that it is not extensively tested so use it at your own risk!
I would like to extend the rake spec:notes task to search for notes in custom directories and integrate it into rails 2.1, but I am just short on time. Hopefully someone has already done it or would like to do it, if so let me know so I can use it.