Spinning Background Tasks in Rails

Question

What is the preferred way to create a background task for a Rails application? I've heard of Starling/Workling and the good ol' script/runner, but I am curious which is becoming the defacto way to manage this need?

Thanks!

Clarification: I like the idea of Rake in Background, but the problem is, I need something that is running constantly or every 10 hours. I am not going to have the luxury of sitting on a web request, it will need to be started by the server asynchronous to the activities occurring on my site.

Answer 1

Ryan Bates created three great screencasts that might really help you:

1. Rake in Background
2. Starling and Workling
3. Custom Daemon

He talks about the various pros and cons for using each one. This should help you get started.