Rails Projects Abound

Okay, abound is a little strong. But we've got one new one and one to-finish Ruby on Rails project on our plates at work. The new project is a quickie tracking app for all inventory items containing human or animal tissue that get used in the operating rooms. Apparently, it's a JCAHO requirement that, as of January 1, 2007, all hospitals have to track all items that contain any amount of tissue - we've always had to track tissue-based implants: heart valves, bone chips, etc. The idea that was being floated was for a MS Access app, but I've grown way too tired of supporting those, plus with Rails we can now code a web app as fast as we can do a desktop Access app, all things being equal.

Politically speaking, it'll be very cool for us to pull this off in a two-week sprint, and as simple and straight-forward as it is, I'm thinking we'll be done much sooner, even with teaching Ruby and Rails to a couple of long-term Smalltalk/Java/Struts programmers. Technically speaking, the more Rails code we can get in production, the happier I'll be.

The other Rails app on our near horizon is to spend some time finishing Tart, the request management app that I've been learning and twiddling with for over a year now. It's an sort of an issue tracker that incorporates multiple approvals (IRB and departmental), and is tuned to our request process. It'll be good to get it launched and out there in people's hands.

Oh, the update I promised you in the last post? She interviewed very well, blew the socks off everyone she met, and she started on our team last week.

-Bill


Tags: RubyOnRails, Rails