We’re back together – me and Ruby! (Part 1)

The Back Story

So as an architect for a *big* networking company, I really don’t write a whole lot of code.  I guess that’s what happens as our careers move forward.  I’ve traded my syntax color highlighting and code-completion for bubbles and arrow.   I’m probably a glutton for punishment but Viso doesn’t give deprecation warnings and I miss the challenge of making things work.  If you’re a developer, you know what I mean.

I’m also passionate about aviation.  One of the aviation communities most active sites for selling and buying aircraft is a site called Barnstormers.com.  I know, you’re asking: “what does this have to do with Ruby on Rails?”.  Sit tight amigo, we’re getting there.  I’ve been on barnstormers a lot.  It’s active and I suppose it gets the job done but a more 1990′s site I couldn’t imagine.  Web 1.0 is alive and well with a visually busy layout, flashing GIFS and blinking ads.  I’ve been thinking … what if somebody manned up and did a really nice web 2.0 Rails, AJAX blah blah blah site.  If anything it would be a good exercise to tackle some real-world programming issues.

The Challenge

Could I design, test, build and deploy a soup-to-nuts application in 30 days (give or take, hey I’ve got a life too you know). This fits into several personal philosophies of mine: First, don’t spend a ton of time or money trying to launch a business. Agile and rapid is not only a good tenant for software but for businesses too. So off to the whiteboard we go. I thought it might be fun to do a blogging series detailing this adventure and to document getting back together with an old flame – ah Ruby… I missed you!!!

So stay tuned! In the next installment, I’ll talk about some resources for initially dusting off my eroded Ruby on Rails skills and how I gingerly navigated the Rails 2.x verses Rails 3. SPOILER WARNING! !: Rails 3 rocks!

In the meantime, if you want to keep tabs on the launch, please visit the Fly-Mart.com launch page.