> > I'm talking to a company about converting a large application to Rails, > and we're struggling with seeing what is possible.
With a professional team, it's definitely possible, but it'll hurt, a lot. One option we've discussed is setting up a HackDay. i.e. Inviting as many > Rails programmers as we can find to a day where they work on converting / > reimagining the companies software. At the end of the day, we can review > the software and make some decisions about going the Rails Route / how to > reimplement the code base. You'll probably get beginner/medium skilled people attending something like that, it flies contrary to my feelings about your first sentence. Your client (your firm?) would be better hiring a couple of professional consultants for one or two weeks, rather than going the "thousand monkeys" route. With planning, and focus, the investment would probably be at around the same level, and you'll get a real insight into what's possible as against a superficial view of what a few small teams can implement in a weekend. (which is not much, in not much time) The problems your client (your firm?) are more likely to run into will be subtle and probably won't be shaken out at a hack day; rails isn't magic, nor is it a panacea. 1) Does this sort of thing (re-imagining a old application) sound like fun? Yes, but let it be a thought architect, lock a few of the architects of the existing system in a room with 3-5 seasoned rails developers, and let it be a thought experiment, rather than trying to cut code. 2) What would I have to pay you / offer to get you to come? You can't afford me. (but mostly because I'm in Germany, and the rates here are insane) 3) Anyone been to anything like this before? I fondly remember brainstorming the issues around converting (what was briefly Europe's highest traffic Rails site) from a Perl kludge that was 10 years out of date into a Rails system that was only a year out of date when we got around to shipping! The coding, however was the worst part of it. Some parts of the system got re-written back to Perl because Ruby was simply too slow. Lee Hambley -- http://lee.hambley.name/ +49 (0) 170 298 5667 On 3 July 2013 17:40, Sean Bamforth <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm talking to a company about converting a large application to Rails, > and we're struggling with seeing what is possible. > > One option we've discussed is setting up a HackDay. i.e. Inviting as many > Rails programmers as we can find to a day where they work on converting / > reimagining the companies software. At the end of the day, we can review > the software and make some decisions about going the Rails Route / how to > reimplement the code base. > > This is tricksy for a number of reasons, but number one is that nobody > really wants to do a bunch of work for a commercial organisation with being > paid handsomly. > > I'm not going to suggest that we grab as many people in for a hackday as > we can, and pay them each a fixed industry level amount, because it would > be a pretty expensive way of getting a lot of non-commercial code. I'm also > not going to suggest some kind of low value bribe (beer, pizza and some > kind of donation to a charity of your choice) > > I'm loathe to offer prizes too. As nice as it is to give one person a MBP, > that means there's a whole bunch that don't get a MBP. > > So - > > 1) Does this sort of thing (re-imagining a old application) sound like fun? > 2) What would I have to pay you / offer to get you to come? > 3) Anyone been to anything like this before? > > Most importantly, what are your thoughts about this? > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "NWRUG" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NWRUG" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
