Ruby on Rails vs PeopleSoft Development

I've been reading about this new hype in Software development world called 'Ruby on Rails’. It’s pretty interesting, rather really cool thing to happen to Software Development. I just started reading this article titled ‘What is Ruby on Rails’ on O’REILLY. It’s a really good article I would advise you all to read through it. It’s an introduction and road map to the many features of Rails.

Now I don’t know if I’m worthy enough to be called a ‘PeopleSoft Techie’ but I have done some developments in PeopleSoft. I found the whole ‘Ruby on Rails’ quite similar to the way we develop in PeopleSoft. Let me elaborate on this a bit.

“Rails is an MVC (model, view, controller) framework where Rails provides all the layers and they work together seamlessly”
Developments in PeopleSoft are also based on a MVC framework that comes with the Enterprise PeopleTools Framework. We have a ‘Data Model’-Model, ‘User Interface’ (Page Definitions and all)–View, and ‘Component Processor’-Controller forms the base for our PeopleSoft related developments.

“Scaffolding-Rails can automatically create a full set of CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, and Delete) operations and views on any database table”
The best part of developing an application in PS is that you don’t have to write a single piece of code for your Database transactions. It’s taken care by the whole Enterprise PeopleTools Frame work. The Creation, Updation and Deletion of database entries of your Component records is taken care by the PeopleTools Framework.

“Active Record is the part of Rails that handles the automatic mapping of your database tables to your runtime model objects. It's the M in MVC, and it is Rails' implementation of an ORM layer.”
The Active record is similar to Component Record that we have in PeopleSoft App Designer. The Component Record(s) has a firm binding to the Component (PeopleSoft Component) that we design in PeopleSoft. You'll never need to see or use SQL when accessing or updating your database the same as in the Rails framework.
There is this concept of ‘Associations’ in Rails where you can tell Active Record about the relationships with related tables in your model classes, and Active Record will generate a slew of navigation methods that make it easy for your code to access related data. The same can be found in the concept of usage of Scrolls in PeopleSoft Components.

“Call backs-As Active Record creates and destroys model objects and creates and updates them in the database, you can monitor these events in the object's life cycle using callbacks. You can use callbacks to handle complex business logic, modify data before Rails writes it to the database”
This is very similar to the Events that we have in our definitions(Component/Page/Record/Field) in PeopleSoft. For Example

Rails Callback<==>PeopleSoft Event

before_save<==>Save PreChange

before_create<==>Row Insert

Well these are the few things that I found similar in the ‘Ruby on Rails’ Development Framework and the ‘Enterprise PeopleTools’ PeopleSoft Development Framework.

I’ve still have not gone through what the ‘Ruby on Rails’ framework does and provides in detail, I’m still in the re-search mode on this topic. From what I read about the framework, these similarities just seemed to make sense to me. Looking forward for some views and comments on the same.

Well till we meet again, the question of course “Ruby on Rails as a development framework- to be or not to be?”
Answer: “Yes ‘Ruby on Rails’ is on a real nice track. It’s definitely to be.”

101 days

Today I start my blog, my first blog. Today I am more happy to blog on something I'd like to share with you all. Let me introduce you to the "Open House Badminton Community"

It was started some few months ago when two guys thought of getting into sports.

(I'm trying to work on a "two guys and an idea which later became Google" theme, so please play along ok).

Come on...Sports!!!!...., why sports?:
They did try jogging and all but it wasn't fun enough to making it a habit.

Ok Fair enough... But for what?:
Well you know these guys are software engineers, all they get to do in a day is brood in front of a PC, code a few lines and eat at regular and irregular intervals. The unlucky ones who do accumulate a lot of body fat had problems with the 'unluck' being fairly visible to the outside world in the tummy region. So I guess that's a fair enough reason.

Too good a reason but why Badminton?:
Well let me introduce you to Guy1 lets call him 'Neo', he know Badminton on the other hand meet Guy2 he knows carp about sports , you could categorize him as your 'play less talk more guy' meet Guy2 lets call him 'Anakin skywalker'

So these guys decide they'll initiate this Badminton thing, Neo is like the Catalyst, he'd quick to start an initiative, so he gets hold on two Badminton Rackets and a Shuttle Cork from some of his friends. He even finds a place where we can play, a small deserted field near our place... Lets give it a name... hmmmmmm let me think....... Yup...'Sea of Tranquility'.

The next day, early in the morning (were talking 5:30 AM early) Neo and Anakin starts on to this deserted land to play badminton, they are all armed- rackets and all. They reach the place and nobody is there, just as they were to set foot on the 'Sea of Tranquility'. A dog started barking real loud that it woke up the Guards in the neighboring apartments and surprisingly the guard for our 'Sea of Tranquility'. So technically we didn't get to set foot on 'Sea of Tranquility', we get into a dialogue with the Guard of the plot, who says it's 'Private Property'-talk about 'initiative inhibitors'.Well there goes the 'Sea of Tranquility'- now the mission that started with a place to play, rackets and two blokes with an initiative get reduced to, two guys two rackets and the initiative.

So then what happened:
Neo "We did come this far it's real bad if we just go home right". "Yup we should atleast try to do a smash and all with these rackets right" Anankin added. Two Blokes, rackets and a pavement. Well let me tell you something, these two blokes started out something that is called the "Open Source Badminton Community"... Oops... "Open House Badminton Community" (OHBC), which now boast of a badminton court of their own, 6 plus members, full infrastructure, our own rackets and shuttle corks

Aside:Hope the "two guys and an idea which later became Google" theme worked.

Well if you are wondering where I fit into this story, well I'm the 'Anakin Skywalker'-may the force be with you

This whole OHBC thing helped me a lot, it taught me a lot. I'm having a tough time personally in life but there are few things that do help me cope up with every day- this OHBC is one of them.

I learnt that everyday there is a something for you to start, something to initiate, some good habit, some blog... something. It need not be yours, there might be some good start that would require your support, your participation- be part of it, support it. I learnt that killing good initiatives is the most worthless thing you could do in a life time.

I learnt a game, I was never into sports, I always was a 'wanted to be' person... 'wanted to be' a doctor... 'wanted to be' a F1 Race Car engineer ... 'wanted to be' a Basket ball player(this had nothing to do with Basketball players, who get to date Hot girls in school ;-) )... I wanted to be a lot. Now I know what I want to be, no long term "want to be", just a short term "want to be" and the best thing is I work my level best to be that.

I learnt keeping boundaries, restrictions, keeping rules just kills the fun out of everything- keep guidelines not rules. Look at our OHBC it's Open- Anybody can join, age no bar, religion no bar, region no bar.There's no expert or novice or anybody among us. It's open, it's for everyone who share the interest that we have- break a sweat, enjoy the game and go home. That's it. Give your share to the community by your participation, by keeping it alive, that all that is expected from the members.

OHBC had it's share of inhibitors and show stoppers and all, but still we made it this far and we'll keep going on... I learnt that it's hard to swim upstream, but once you reach your goal, your victory is more memorable than the one if you had reached there downstream...

I dedicate this blog to all the members of this great initiative that I have taken some freedom in calling the "OHBC- Open House Badminton Community". This blog is me telling them how much I appreciate their fellowship in this humble initiative. Today we celebrate the 101th day of this fellowship. I'd would love to disclose the members of this community, but I still haven't asked their permission, if they permit I'll put their name and pixs in my next blog. Promise.

Thanks for patiently reading through this blog, this is a new initiative that I started today. I would like you all to keep coming back and read my blogs and give your valuable comments and all, I request you to be the 'catalyst' in this small initiative of mine.

Now the question that I ask myself everyday... 'To be or not to be?"
Answer: "Yup I'd die to be ME"