A quick and dirty helper method to display a short form distance of time in words.

time_ago.rb

# Usage:
#  short_time_in_words(Time.now, 5.seconds.ago)  # => "5s"
#  short_time_in_words(Time.now, 5.minutes.ago)  # => "5m"
#  short_time_in_words(Time.now, 5.hours.ago)  # => "5h"
#  short_time_in_words(Time.now, 55.hours.ago)  # => "2d"
# 


def short_time_in_words(from_time, to_time)
  from_time = from_time.to_i
  to_time = to_time.to_i
  diff = (from_time - to_time).abs

  if diff < 60
    return "#{diff}s"
  elsif diff < 60*60
    return "#{diff/60}m"
  elsif diff < 60*60*24
    return "#{diff/(60*60)}h"
  else
    return "#{diff/(60*60*24)}d"
  end
end