I’ve released version 1.5.0 of the Rails Apps Composer gem (announcement here). It’s a gem you can use to generate a Rails starter app. Makes it easy to create and maintain a starter app from recipes that integrate commonly used gems. This release includes a cool new “defaults” feature contributed by Bryan Stearns. Rails Apps Composer is not the only fork of Michael Bleigh’s RailsWizard gem; last month, Dr. Nic Williams of EngineYard forked the RailsWizard gem to create his App Scrolls gem. It seems there’s renewed interest in the idea of generating starter apps for Rails. Probably because Rails continues to get more complicated and gems like these reduce the burden of integrating popular gems into a Rails app.