Semi-graceful seeds...

colorize.rb

# config/initializers/colorize.rb

## Just for prettier output
class String
  def colorize(color, options = {})
    background = options[:background] || options[:bg] || false
    style = options[:style]
    offsets = ["gray","red", "green", "yellow", "blue", "magenta", "cyan","white"]
    styles = ["normal","bold","dark","italic","underline","xx","xx","underline","xx","strikethrough"]
    start = background ? 40 : 30
    color_code = start + (offsets.index(color) || 8)
    style_code = styles.index(style) || 0
    "\e[#{style_code};#{color_code}m#{self}\e[0m"
  end
end

seed1.rb

# db/seeds/seed1.rb
task_description = "Fooing all the bars"
is_successful = true
print task_description + '.'*(100-task_description.length)

begin
  Bars.all.each{ |bar| bar.fooify }
rescue => e
  is_successful = false
  puts "[ERROR]".colorize("red")
  if Rake.application.options.trace == true
    puts e.backtrace.join("\n").colorize("red")
  else
    puts "\tSee stacktrace with option --trace".colorize("red")
  end
  e
end
puts " [SUCCESS]".colorize("green") if is_successful

seeds.rb

# db/seeds.rb
start_time = Time.now
puts "Running seeds".colorize("blue")

load "#{Rails.root}/db/seeds/seed1.rb"
load "#{Rails.root}/db/seeds/seed2.rb"
load "#{Rails.root}/db/seeds/seed3.rb"

end_time = Time.now
puts "Finished running seeds in #{(end_time - start_time).to_i} seconds".colorize("blue")