From mghaught at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 00:44:49 2009 From: mghaught at gmail.com (Marty Haught) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 22:44:49 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] BRG - September Meeting - Sep 15th Message-ID: <57f29e620909032144t29472bb8r9da6d66dbf882cc2@mail.gmail.com> For a second month in a row we'll be hosting Boulder Ruby a day early due to Ignite Boulder already scheduled on September 16th. We'll have the meeting on Tuesday, the 15th at 7pm. I will be presenting on Lean Teams, doing more with less. This will be my first run through on the talk I'll be giving at Aloha in Rails in early October. Speaking of conferences, I just happened upon a one day tech conference being hosted in Boulder in October. http://developer-day.com/ Check out the site. They're still working on filling out the speaker list but I understand it'll be cross-technology so non-Ruby stuff will be presented. We have openings for presenting at our October and November meetings. If you're interested in sharing what you're working on, please contact me offlist. Cheers, Marty Haught @mghaught http://boulderruby.org From mghaught at gmail.com Mon Sep 14 23:31:28 2009 From: mghaught at gmail.com (Marty Haught) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:31:28 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] BRG - September Meeting Reminder - Sep 15th Message-ID: <57f29e620909142031r108e4b49q381ca5c01a779189@mail.gmail.com> Here's the reminder email for tomorrow Boulder Ruby meeting. We'll be meeting a day early on Tuesday, September 15th at 7pm. The meeting will be hosted by Collective Intellect (directions below). I will be presenting my talk "Lean Teams, doing more with less". This will be my first run through on the talk I'll be giving at Aloha in Rails in early October. Before we get started we'll have some networking/chill time as folks get settled in. After the meeting, we'll proceed to the local pub for some drinks and socializing. See you tomorrow. Cheers, Marty Haught http://boulderruby.org Directions: Collective Intellect 1433 Pearl St, Suite 200 Boulder, CO 80302 The office is behind and above Starbucks on Pearl. The entrance is on Pearl Street just east of Starbucks, behind the statue of the wolf. Come straight through all the doors. URL to google maps: http://rubyurl.com/pKfB From kweller at asapwebsoft.com Thu Sep 24 13:23:55 2009 From: kweller at asapwebsoft.com (Kevin Weller) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:23:55 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture Message-ID: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Hey BDRG-ers! I have a request by a potential client for an unusual web application architecture, and wanted to see if anyone else out there has any ideas or knows of any Rails patches or non-Rails MVC webapp frameworks that might fit the bill. Basically, what they want to do is run the entire application within the Postgres database engine...data, business logic, page rendering, everything. What that suggests to me on first blush is either lots of PL/Ruby (and a newly invented internal logical architecture and framework to structure it), or patching Rails to pull all its view elements from the database like some Content Management System on steroids. Of course, I will probably be pushing back on this architectural requirement for phase 1, just so we can get something working quickly and with minimal expense. So far, security is the only reason given for the database-centric architecture, but we've secured some pretty sensitive systems using more traditional web application architectures before. Also, this architecture would affect our ability to cluster the application across arrays of cheap servers too...we'd be improvising so much that's a given in Rails. I'm not so sure that the benefit would be worth the time and expense over a properly tiered standard webapp. Anybody else have any thoughts or references? - Kevin From kweller at asapwebsoft.com Thu Sep 24 13:05:44 2009 From: kweller at asapwebsoft.com (Kevin Weller) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:05:44 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Jobs in Denver :-) Message-ID: <46690848-E9F7-4CDA-B99A-62379B80E501@asapwebsoft.com> NOTE: This is a slightly modified re-post from last month... ASAP WebSoft, LLC (http://www.asapwebsoft.com) is seeking Rails developers. We are looking to immediately fill two contract-to-hire (or direct-hire at your option) positions with a key client to supplement the capacity of ASAP's existing project team. We'll also be looking for some willing-and-able independent contractors (i.e., offsite term contractors rather than on-site contract-to-hire) over the next 2-3 months to assist with other projects that are in the works. Our client with contract-to-hire needs is a growing publicly-traded company that retains the best qualities of a startup, with a casual yet entrepreneurial and motivated culture, and with plenty of interesting technical work to be done. We've spent the past two years building a comprehensive software infrastructure on the Rails platform to run their business, including several web applications and batch processes, all on a common database and a shared library of models and other components. Yet there is still so much more to build and maintain. Our release cycles vary from one to several weeks depending on scope. We have a solid team communications and coordination infrastructure and some of the brightest local Rails and Ruby minds. The contract-to-hire positions are located on-site with the client in downtown Denver, though you may be able to negotiate some telecommuting (a day or two a week at most) in the mix if desired. They will involve a mix of requirements analysis, Ruby and Rails development and maintenance, and quality assurance. Core skills and experience: Ruby, Rails, OO, HTTP, HTML, XHTML and variants, XML, SSL, web services, REST, CSS, AJAX, Unix/Linux, open source, and RDBMS. Useful skills and experience: PostgreSQL, and Rails-specific QA/Testing. A testing specialist with Test::Unit/Shoulda experience and related tools would be a real plus. The same technical skills requirements apply to the independent contractors, but all work will take place off-site using your own facilities and tools. Respond privately to work at asapwebsoft.com if interested. Thanks! Kevin From bothari at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:11:22 2009 From: bothari at gmail.com (Bothari) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:11:22 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Message-ID: Kevin, That's an interesting concept. I guess the assumption would be that the page and business logic would be harder to get to if it were in the database? One client I worked for had the same idea. They did their entire eCommerce site in PL/SQL for Oracle. They didn't do it for security, but because PL/SQL was so versatile. It "rendered" pages, parsed xml, wrote files, and sent email. It was abandoned because it was so complicated and fragile that upgrades took forever, and it took 3 full-time testers to keep bugs (mostly) out of production. What if you proposed a solution where the unix user that runs the web server would have read-only access to the code, so the OS keeps the app from modifiying its own code? That way even if a hacker got access, he could only change things in a limited location (like a temp directory) and wouldn't be able to let things get out of hand. You could even check the site every minute with another checked-out version to see if anything changed from the official svn version. Or maybe that's not the problem they want to solve? Joe On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Kevin Weller wrote: > Hey BDRG-ers! > > I have a request by a potential client for an unusual web application > architecture, and wanted to see if anyone else out there has any ideas or > knows of any Rails patches or non-Rails MVC webapp frameworks that might fit > the bill. > > Basically, what they want to do is run the entire application within the > Postgres database engine...data, business logic, page rendering, everything. > ?What that suggests to me on first blush is either lots of PL/Ruby (and a > newly invented internal logical architecture and framework to structure it), > or patching Rails to pull all its view elements from the database like some > Content Management System on steroids. > > Of course, I will probably be pushing back on this architectural requirement > for phase 1, just so we can get something working quickly and with minimal > expense. ?So far, security is the only reason given for the database-centric > architecture, but we've secured some pretty sensitive systems using more > traditional web application architectures before. ?Also, this architecture > would affect our ability to cluster the application across arrays of cheap > servers too...we'd be improvising so much that's a given in Rails. ?I'm not > so sure that the benefit would be worth the time and expense over a properly > tiered standard webapp. > > Anybody else have any thoughts or references? > > - Kevin > _______________________________________________ > Bdrg-members mailing list > Bdrg-members at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/bdrg-members > -- "There are only two industries that refer to their customers as ?users?." - Edward Tufte From ara.t.howard at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:14:48 2009 From: ara.t.howard at gmail.com (ara.t.howard) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:14:48 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Message-ID: <2524b8cc0909241114m26dff6e0jf0f8f41e63cf9e17@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 11:23, Kevin Weller wrote: > Hey BDRG-ers! > > I have a request by a potential client for an unusual web application > architecture, and wanted to see if anyone else out there has any ideas or > knows of any Rails patches or non-Rails MVC webapp frameworks that might fit > the bill. > > Basically, what they want to do is run the entire application within the > Postgres database engine...data, business logic, page rendering, everything. > ?What that suggests to me on first blush is either lots of PL/Ruby (and a > newly invented internal logical architecture and framework to structure it), > or patching Rails to pull all its view elements from the database like some > Content Management System on steroids. > > Of course, I will probably be pushing back on this architectural requirement > for phase 1, just so we can get something working quickly and with minimal > expense. ?So far, security is the only reason given for the database-centric > architecture, but we've secured some pretty sensitive systems using more > traditional web application architectures before. ?Also, this architecture > would affect our ability to cluster the application across arrays of cheap > servers too...we'd be improvising so much that's a given in Rails. ?I'm not > so sure that the benefit would be worth the time and expense over a properly > tiered standard webapp. > > Anybody else have any thoughts or references? > people are doing this now with couchdb - only it's html + js. check out the futon app. this major issue, ironically, with this arch is that it *requires* the database to be on the internet! how that provides security i'm unsure of.... another massive drawback is that dbs simply aren't built to handle to handle large numbers of concurrent requests - at least not be today's web standards. pl/ruby's maintainer died a while back. i've used it extensively in the past and wouldn't want to write a web framework using it - especially since it's unlikely to be maintained moving forward. that being said you may want to pick dan fitzpatrick's head - he's the deepest in to the pg/ruby rabbit hole of anyone i know. i bcc'd him on this message (not sure how the emails end up on the interwebs). cheers. -- -a -- be kind whenever possible... it is always possible - h.h. the 14th dalai lama From ara.t.howard at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:21:53 2009 From: ara.t.howard at gmail.com (ara.t.howard) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:21:53 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Message-ID: <2524b8cc0909241121m7d864078ybc7eac8a92c2d411@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:11, Bothari wrote: > One client I worked for had the same idea. ?They did their entire > eCommerce site in PL/SQL for Oracle. ?They didn't do it for security, > but because PL/SQL was so versatile. ?It "rendered" pages, parsed xml, > wrote files, and sent email. ?It was abandoned because it was so > complicated and fragile that upgrades took forever, and it took 3 > full-time testers to keep bugs (mostly) out of production. i had the same experience at NOAA actually. in the end they canned the guy running it and started over from scratch on rails ;-) you might ask alex mendoza about it - he is the one who wrote the new rails app - bcc'd on this message. -- -a -- be kind whenever possible... it is always possible - h.h. the 14th dalai lama From mghaught at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:20:07 2009 From: mghaught at gmail.com (Marty Haught) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:20:07 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Message-ID: <57f29e620909241120l6bbe78p11dab1d81bfedcd2@mail.gmail.com> > One client I worked for had the same idea. They did their entire > eCommerce site in PL/SQL for Oracle. They didn't do it for security, > but because PL/SQL was so versatile. It "rendered" pages, parsed xml, > wrote files, and sent email. It was abandoned because it was so > complicated and fragile that upgrades took forever, and it took 3 > full-time testers to keep bugs (mostly) out of production. That's really interesting Joe. My first programming job was at Digital River in the 90s and they did the exact thing same. It was cumbersome and slow. But you could make all the db changes you wanted whenever you needed. I left before this happened but they migrated to Java as that was a better business fit. Kevin, my gut says that unless it solves a tricky business problem it will not give a good return on investment. Maybe the client is so paranoid about other issues that wasting money for little value isn't a big deal. *shrugs* Cheers, Marty From phil.swenson at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:20:43 2009 From: phil.swenson at gmail.com (phil swenson) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:20:43 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Message-ID: this is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. I would avoid the project unless desperate. going to be seriously unproductive, db schema upgrades for every tweak? argh. horrible to debug, horrible to maintain. and won't scale. No one does this for good reason. On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Kevin Weller wrote: > Hey BDRG-ers! > > I have a request by a potential client for an unusual web application > architecture, and wanted to see if anyone else out there has any ideas or > knows of any Rails patches or non-Rails MVC webapp frameworks that might fit > the bill. > > Basically, what they want to do is run the entire application within the > Postgres database engine...data, business logic, page rendering, everything. > ?What that suggests to me on first blush is either lots of PL/Ruby (and a > newly invented internal logical architecture and framework to structure it), > or patching Rails to pull all its view elements from the database like some > Content Management System on steroids. > > Of course, I will probably be pushing back on this architectural requirement > for phase 1, just so we can get something working quickly and with minimal > expense. ?So far, security is the only reason given for the database-centric > architecture, but we've secured some pretty sensitive systems using more > traditional web application architectures before. ?Also, this architecture > would affect our ability to cluster the application across arrays of cheap > servers too...we'd be improvising so much that's a given in Rails. ?I'm not > so sure that the benefit would be worth the time and expense over a properly > tiered standard webapp. > > Anybody else have any thoughts or references? > > - Kevin > _______________________________________________ > Bdrg-members mailing list > Bdrg-members at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/bdrg-members > From ara.t.howard at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:32:00 2009 From: ara.t.howard at gmail.com (ara.t.howard) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:32:00 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Message-ID: <2524b8cc0909241132q624e3f64lb32e51a2f6936b6f@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:20, phil swenson wrote: > ?I would avoid the project unless desperate. lol! -- -a -- be kind whenever possible... it is always possible - h.h. the 14th dalai lama From cdonohoe at engineyard.com Thu Sep 24 14:25:21 2009 From: cdonohoe at engineyard.com (Corey Donohoe) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:25:21 -0700 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Kevin Weller wrote: > Hey BDRG-ers! > > I have a request by a potential client for an unusual web application > architecture, and wanted to see if anyone else out there has any ideas or > knows of any Rails patches or non-Rails MVC webapp frameworks that might fit > the bill. > > Basically, what they want to do is run the entire application within the > Postgres database engine...data, business logic, page rendering, everything. > ?What that suggests to me on first blush is either lots of PL/Ruby (and a > newly invented internal logical architecture and framework to structure it), > or patching Rails to pull all its view elements from the database like some > Content Management System on steroids. My intuition tells me this will fail for all the reasons Bothari pointed out in his reply. It sounds like it will be fragile and unmaintainable by the time it ever does anything useful. I'm not against storing code or logic in the DB but I think you'll find it difficult to respond to change over time. > > Of course, I will probably be pushing back on this architectural requirement > for phase 1, just so we can get something working quickly and with minimal > expense. This is a wise decision. :) > So far, security is the only reason given for the database-centric > architecture, but we've secured some pretty sensitive systems using more > traditional web application architectures before. ?Also, this architecture > would affect our ability to cluster the application across arrays of cheap > servers too...we'd be improvising so much that's a given in Rails. ?I'm not > so sure that the benefit would be worth the time and expense over a properly > tiered standard webapp. Go standard, you'll be able to find more people and take advantage of other people's work. This way you can focus on the core domain of the problem and solve the important stuff while standing on the shoulders of giants for all the other stuff you'll end up reimplementing. > > Anybody else have any thoughts or references? > > - Kevin > _______________________________________________ -- Corey Donohoe http://atmos.org http://engineyard.com http://thetownhall.org From camerooni at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:53:18 2009 From: camerooni at gmail.com (Cameron Pope) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:53:18 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> Message-ID: <0A1F92E8-A0B8-4F8D-AB04-7D88B22A0137@gmail.com> Greetings - I wouldn't be too hard on the customer. It's pretty common that the customer comes with a solution in mind that makes perfect sense to them. The challenge is to untangle the tacit assumptions they are making and read the tea-leaves to get to the problem they are trying to solve. > Basically, what they want to do is run the entire application within > the Postgres database engine...data, business logic, page rendering, > everything. What that suggests to me on first blush is either lots > of PL/Ruby (and a newly invented internal logical architecture and > framework to structure it), or patching Rails to pull all its view > elements from the database like some Content Management System on > steroids. Ouch. > Of course, I will probably be pushing back on this architectural > requirement for phase 1, just so we can get something working > quickly and with minimal expense. So far, security is the only > reason given for the database-centric architecture, but we've > secured some pretty sensitive systems using more traditional web > application architectures before. You might also want to tell your customer that approach is fraught with its unique perils. Rails, by virtue of being open-source and widely-deployed, has a community that finds security holes and fixes them. Personally, I would trust the security in rails over something of the same scale I wrote myself, simply by virtue of it being pounded on year after year and all the eyes and hands in the code. Sure the 'everything in the DB' approach has the advantage of fewer servers and apps to secure, but I would not be worried about the security of Postgres itself rather than the consequences of the bugs introduced by writing a full-stack framework on top of it. I would also make sure that your client is aware that a lot of security regulations require that data be stored on a seperate, and seperately secured network than the applications. That is a requirement for PCI compliance, at the very least. The best way to secure the data that they care so much about is to put multiple layers of security between the outside world and their data. > Also, this architecture would affect our ability to cluster the > application across arrays of cheap servers too...we'd be improvising > so much that's a given in Rails. I'm not so sure that the benefit > would be worth the time and expense over a properly tiered standard > webapp. I doubt there's really a benefit. I think the key to convincing the customer to abandon their desire to stash everything in postgres will be to gain a more detailed understanding of what they really mean when they say 'security'. From dan at eparklabs.com Thu Sep 24 15:35:54 2009 From: dan at eparklabs.com (Dan Fitzpatrick) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:35:54 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <2524b8cc0909241114m26dff6e0jf0f8f41e63cf9e17@mail.gmail.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> <2524b8cc0909241114m26dff6e0jf0f8f41e63cf9e17@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4ACA6C22-BF8B-4046-99F0-8FBB6266A46B@eparklabs.com> On Sep 24, 2009, at 12:14 PM, ara.t.howard wrote: > > that being said you may want to pick dan fitzpatrick's head - he's the > deepest in to the pg/ruby rabbit hole of anyone i know. i bcc'd him > on this message (not sure how the emails end up on the interwebs). > > cheers. > > -- > -a > -- > be kind whenever possible... it is always possible - h.h. the 14th > dalai lama I built a system like this in 1995 with Perl CGI -> Applescript -> FileMaker Pro. All the pages, layouts, and business logic where in the database. FileMaker had great media capabilities at the time. We were shooting pictures straight into the FileMaker client and the web app was showing the media and meta data as it was added to the database. I wrote report layouts that were html within FileMaker -- it did the variable substitution and loops where needed. And these reports were dynamically spit out to the browser clients via AppleScript and Perl. Then I built something similar but way more complex with ColdFusion and Oracle. I can say that it sounds great at first but is a complete bear to maintain. The only way to do most of what you are talking about successfully is to store only meta data in the DB and the critical business rules in pl/psql (not program flow). The data can be data about the view, business logic, validation, etc. Then have a very thin app server that pulls and processes the data act as the generic traffic cop or glue between the user and their data using meta data about how to do what. I highly recommend that the meta data about the app be in a different database (or schema/namespace in postgres) than the real/customer data. This one thing will make migrating, testing, and rolling back when needed way easier. All of this is doable and pretty maintainable if well architected but I do not recommend it. It is harder to maintain than normal code. Additionally, the database is always the bottleneck and the less you use it the less of bottleneck you will have. I've sat in big sales meetings with database vendors touting the advantages of "everything in the database" - but that is because they are selling databases. -- Dan Fitzpatrick ePark Labs / http://eparklabs.com +1 (970) 586-1086 / dan at eparklabs.com From harrylove at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 16:25:45 2009 From: harrylove at gmail.com (Harry Love) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:25:45 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <4ACA6C22-BF8B-4046-99F0-8FBB6266A46B@eparklabs.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> <2524b8cc0909241114m26dff6e0jf0f8f41e63cf9e17@mail.gmail.com> <4ACA6C22-BF8B-4046-99F0-8FBB6266A46B@eparklabs.com> Message-ID: <978195830909241325y671096f7g4552d93111659190@mail.gmail.com> > So far, security is the only reason given for the database-centric architecture To quote Matthew Broderick as David Lightman in Wargames, "I don't believe any system is totally secure." And having worked with pl/pgsql for business logic in a Rails app, I can say I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone. I would push back haaaard. Harry -- Harry Love harry at harrylove.org http://harrylove.org/ http://twitter.com/harrylove m (720) 938-2486 From Alex.Mendoza at noaa.gov Thu Sep 24 16:21:07 2009 From: Alex.Mendoza at noaa.gov (Alex Mendoza) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:21:07 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <2524b8cc0909241121m7d864078ybc7eac8a92c2d411@mail.gmail.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> <2524b8cc0909241121m7d864078ybc7eac8a92c2d411@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4ABBD4B3.5080900@noaa.gov> Hello All, Too right! Exact same experience here at NOAA with the Oracle pl/sql asset management application I took over...to the letter. I started this position(as an Oracle developer/DBA) with "feature requests" for that application more than two years old. I soon found out why they had not been accomplished before I started on the project. The lumbering beast that was so expensive to license and maintain (Oracle quoted $300K to replace software)...was near impossible to quickly adapt to changing business environments without breaking it completely. The business logic(by design) was so integrated into the system, we could hardly change without rewriting large portions of the application/database and testing for weeks. Today the same application completely re-vamped in ROR takes up about 54mb of disk and runs free on multi-threaded Postgresql. Feature request turn over today, with testing, is about a week. I consider myself to be a recovering Oracle developer now. (thanx ara, my wise teacher) ha! am ara.t.howard wrote: > On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:11, Bothari wrote: > >> One client I worked for had the same idea. They did their entire >> eCommerce site in PL/SQL for Oracle. They didn't do it for security, >> but because PL/SQL was so versatile. It "rendered" pages, parsed xml, >> wrote files, and sent email. It was abandoned because it was so >> complicated and fragile that upgrades took forever, and it took 3 >> full-time testers to keep bugs (mostly) out of production. >> > > > i had the same experience at NOAA actually. in the end they canned > the guy running it and started over from scratch on rails ;-) > > you might ask alex mendoza about it - he is the one who wrote the new > rails app - bcc'd on this message. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stimits at comcast.net Thu Sep 24 19:02:26 2009 From: stimits at comcast.net (stimits at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:02:26 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <978195830909241325y671096f7g4552d93111659190@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1186135209.5166951253833346578.JavaMail.root@sz0122a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Love" To: "Boulder-Denver Ruby Group" Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 8:25:45 PM GMT +00:00 Monrovia Subject: Re: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture > So far, security is the only reason given for the database-centric architecture To quote Matthew Broderick as David Lightman in Wargames, "I don't believe any system is totally secure." And having worked with pl/pgsql for business logic in a Rails app, I can say I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone. I would push back haaaard. ..... I don't reply to many list emails these days, but I couldn't resist on this one... PL/PGSQL will do more harm in the long run, because no app is unchanging. Changes will start taking longer, needed fixes will start to be perceived as harder and put off. I agree with Harry, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. FYI, if you really are object oriented, database logic should be restricted to data restrictions, and not mingle with web code. D. Stimits, stimits AT comcast DOT net .... Harry -- Harry Love harry at harrylove.org http://harrylove.org/ http://twitter.com/harrylove m (720) 938-2486 _______________________________________________ Bdrg-members mailing list Bdrg-members at rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/bdrg-members -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ara.t.howard at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 19:32:34 2009 From: ara.t.howard at gmail.com (ara.t.howard) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:32:34 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> <2524b8cc0909241121m7d864078ybc7eac8a92c2d411@mail.gmail.com> <4ABBD4B3.5080900@noaa.gov> Message-ID: <2524b8cc0909251632y6a8ffd51y309ebf61ecbca91d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 17:24, Kevin Weller wrote: > Thanks to everyone for corroborating my concerns. ?Have a great weekend > y'all! it's valuable for everyone to have everyone weigh on on things like this i would expect - it's always valuable to have 'expert' supporting opinions when speaking with a client. given that this group is on the interwebs (and let's not forget that) i, for one, would like to see more of this kind of thing - we could all probably help educate each other's clients where appropriate. cheers. -- -a -- be kind whenever possible... it is always possible - h.h. the 14th dalai lama From kweller at asapwebsoft.com Fri Sep 25 19:58:28 2009 From: kweller at asapwebsoft.com (Kevin Weller) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:58:28 -0600 Subject: [Boulder Ruby Group] Request for Non-Standard Ruby Webapp Architecture In-Reply-To: <2524b8cc0909251632y6a8ffd51y309ebf61ecbca91d@mail.gmail.com> References: <58FCAAD1-CCAF-4013-B420-2DAFB302B4BE@asapwebsoft.com> <2524b8cc0909241121m7d864078ybc7eac8a92c2d411@mail.gmail.com> <4ABBD4B3.5080900@noaa.gov> <2524b8cc0909251632y6a8ffd51y309ebf61ecbca91d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6366AF19-ABCB-4E2D-9182-08871AC14138@asapwebsoft.com> Agreed. One of the best things about this and similar communities is the opportunity to conduct sanity-checks like this for each other. Besides, I thought the mailing list was just too damn quiet. :-) - Kevin On Sep 25, 2009, at 5:32 PM, ara.t.howard wrote: > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 17:24, Kevin Weller > wrote: >> Thanks to everyone for corroborating my concerns. Have a great >> weekend >> y'all! > > > it's valuable for everyone to have everyone weigh on on things like > this i would expect - it's always valuable to have 'expert' supporting > opinions when speaking with a client. > > given that this group is on the interwebs (and let's not forget that) > i, for one, would like to see more of this kind of thing - we could > all probably help educate each other's clients where appropriate. > > cheers. > > -- > -a > -- > be kind whenever possible... it is always possible - h.h. the 14th > dalai lama