WHITE PAPERS SPONSORED PROFILES JOB BOARD WEBINAR CENTER FREE SOFTWARE BZ RESEARCH ALMSHAREPOINT EVENTS CALENDAR PRINT/PDF EDITION PRINT/PDF BACK ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE TODAY CUSTOMER SERVICE EDITORIAL CALENDAR EDITORIAL BEATS GUEST VIEW GUIDE SD TIMES 100 GUIDE EVENTS CALENDAR ADVERTISING ARTICLE REPRINTS REPORT A BUG SITE MAP

ABOUT US BZ MEDIA NEWS BZ RESEARCH NEWS ON MONDAY SPTECHREPORT SPTECHWEB SPTECHCON IPHONE/IPAD DEVCON ANDROID DEVCON PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US

HOME >> OPINIONS

Rails for Tactical Business Applications

By Zak Mandhro

January 1, 2007 — (Page 1 of 3)
Rails is a Web development framework based on the cross-platform object-oriented Ruby language. Both the language and the framework are free and open-source software.

Rails offers remarkable productivity by taking advantage of powerful Ruby features. Among these are dynamic classes and closures, and programming concepts such as meta-programming and “convention over configuration,” using the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern and Test-Driven Development to help developers build high-quality and easy to maintain software with fewer lines of code.

Most of my Rails colleagues shy away from doing enterprise software. I don’t blame them; over the years, the phrase “enterprise software” has amassed negative connotations such as overly complex, expensive to build, and difficult to maintain. The Rails community wants to detach itself, and enterprise software, from this legacy and take a green field approach to Web development.

Some of the Web’s most popular Web sites, such as 43things, 37signals and Odeo, run on Rails, and many more are being built every day. I believe what makes Rails the preferred platform for many Web 2.0 applications also makes it an attractive option for building tactical business applications.

A tactical business application, or TBA, is a Web front end to enterprise relational databases. Unlike ERP applications and complex transactional business systems, TBAs are simple data input and automation systems that fulfill specific business needs. Information gets inputted, validated, stored in the database and reported back. Some popular platforms for TBAs include Access, Visual Basic, Visual FoxPro, PowerBuilder and Delphi, all predominantly non-Web technologies that are difficult to manage and distribute. Meanwhile, some developers have elected to use PHP and ColdFusion for such applications; these page-oriented scripting languages embed data access (SQL) and control logic into pages, leading to code that is cluttered, verbose and difficult to maintain.

By contrast, Rails uses true object-oriented code with clean separation of data access, presentation and control concerns. Unlike Java and .NET, Rails is very concise. It takes advantage of Ruby’s concise syntax and dynamic nature to eliminate excessive declarations, type definition and casting, XML configuration files and annotated metadata. For example, Rails injects the attributes and behavior dynamically at runtime from the database structure. A simple model with two lines of code will give you create, read, update, delete and finder behavior dynamically while staying true to object orientation and MVC principles.

Pages 1 2 3

Share this link: http://sdt.bz/29931

Most Read Latest News Blog Resources

Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers

ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists

Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles

Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.

The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...

Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...

Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...

Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...

Technorati

Digg

Slashdot

Facebook

Friendfeed

Twitter

del.icio.us

Stop hard-coding business rules Giving more power to "business developers" can streamline production, though it has its drawbacks

Kik Launches an Open API to Enable Mobile Developers to Bake Instant Content Sharing Into Any App API-powered developers like Rude Boy Games, DrinkOwl and FlyScreen can promote their apps to millions of Kik Messenger users.

webOS no great loss for developers HP wasn’t able to build momentum for the former Palm operating system

Add comment

Name*
Email*
Country

Comment

Stop hard-coding business rules
Giving more power to "business developers" can streamline production, though it has its drawbacks Read More...

News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST