Ruby on Rails
We're Getting on Board
OK, Ruby on Rails seems like the perfect development solution for our environment. We have student developers that need to quickly learn proper programming procedures since they don't stick around forever (they graduate and move out into the real world, sigh.) The disciplined approach and rapid prototyping capabilities seem a good match.
I had a few concerns. Must work in a Windows environment. Must integrate seamlessly with our other IIS applications. Must be able to upgrade an application without affecting the service of other applications. Must be stable - with only 1 1/2 permanent staff members, we can't afford to pick a new environment only to drop it after a year because it gets abandoned.
Brian Hogan found a way to make this all work with a little help from Mongrel (See Deploying Rails on Windows servers). So I attended the May 20-21, 2006 Workshop for Good at the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School in Washington, DC to get more of the scoop on Ruby.
What a ride! Coordinated by Jeff Casimir who teaches at the high school and assisted by Amy Hoy and Ezra Zygmuntowicz, I can now speak yamel. I also can converse with other Ruby developers. I can't write code well yet but that will come as I work with the beginning skills I learned.
That around $10,000 in funds were generated for the school by the donation of time by the presenters was icing on the cake. A nicer group could not be found. Thanks to everyone (especially Larry, my table partner) for helping me through the exercises. >>more photos
