Using Ruby and Rails in the enterprise
The Rails Podcast has an excellent interview with Josh Shairbaum and Dan Manges from JP Morgan on using Rails in the enterprise. Do check it out if you’re at all interested in introducting Ruby/Rails to your particular company.
Listening to Josh and Dan made me realise that I’m quite fortunate to be working in a company where there are no corporate traditions to follow when it comes to technology. I’ve developed 2 applications for use by staff and clients alike so far and they’re both powered by Rails. Being the sole developer in my company, Rails is a perfect fit and this combination has shown its worth.
Josh mentioned that his development team of 3 got Rails in the door by using it to develop a reporting application, an app where the implementing technology was not a big issue with corporate managers. By having the reporting application running AND available to end users within 1.5 months demonstrated the productivity gains that can be achieved by Rails. A lot of evangelizing and demonstrations were done to help their cause too. I think that they benefited a fair bit from having key people in other functional units willing to give Rails a try, even though it required them to risk doing something that’s new and by corporate definition, risky.
It’s encouraging to listen to them and their passion for Rails was apparent in the way they talked about and how they dealt with people who did not understand what it was.