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List:       ruby-talk
Subject:    Announce: Qanah Enterprise eCommerce
From:       "Joshua J. Kugler" <jkugler () bigfoot ! com>
Date:       2005-03-20 1:11:14
Message-ID: 200503191610.43212.jkugler () bigfoot ! com
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Hello all!

[Warning: this will be long.  My appreciation if you should read through 
to the end. :)]

Intro and "Credentials"
My name is Joshua Kugler, and I currently a system administrator for the 
University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Distance Education 
<http://www.distance.uaf.edu/>, and am currently pursuing my Masters in 
Computer Science.  I've used Perl for years, writing entire database 
driven web sites using it <see http://asuaf.org>; simple but 
functional.  I've also written an entire database app using MS Access 
and Visual Basic...nice, but VB isn't my favorite language.  I was also 
the project leader for several class projects, including our senior 
design project.

My intro to Ruby
I've known about the Ruby language for some time now, and was especially 
intruiged by just *how* object oriented it was.  Well, a few weeks ago, 
starting with the O'Reilly series, I found out about Rails.  As I 
learned more via the second part of the O'Reilly series, "Really 
Getting Started in Rails," and "Four Days on Rails," I really started 
to get excited.  So, yes, I must make a disclaimer: I have yet to 
program one line of Ruby code.  You can stop reading now if that 
disgusts you. :)  I've also written a couple of papers on software 
design and implementation.  See <http://asuaf.org/~joshua/papers>

What I want to do
I've done googling, reading, and mail-list searching.  Other than a 
smattering of posts and references 
(http://textdrive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=24856, and this thread: 
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.ruby.rails/2349), I've found no 
serious discussion of a solid, open source, Rails-based eCommerce 
application.  I'll be needing a good, maintainable, extensible 
eCommerce system in a few (or several) months, and I want to 1) Learn 
Ruby and Rails, 2) get some project management experience, and 3) 
create something that could become a "poster app" for Rails (I know, 
Basecamp; I said "a," not "the").  eCommerce is something that really 
needs a lot of templating and site design apart from the back-end code 
and is ripe for something with good MVC separation like Rails.

The Details
This will not be a rush job.  As much as my hacker/programmer instincts 
want to jump in and start implementing, I know better.  I've done 
enough projects where lack of planning came back and bit me.  So, this 
will not be a rush project.  If you're looking for a product in a 
couple months, this ain't it. :)  We're probably looking at a three to 
six month design process to gather and orgainze requirements, do 
design, and do initial system layout.

I've registered for a project on rubyforge, and will shortly have more 
details forthcoming.

Conclusion
Well, I have a lot of ideas I'll be distilling in the next few days and 
weeks.  If anyone is interested or has questions, feel free to ask.  I 
know I've bitten off a big chunk, but I'm excited about leading a 
project and learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

j----- k-----

-- 
Joshua J. Kugler -- Fairbanks, Alaska -- ICQ#:13706295
Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, in heaven, on earth, and 
under the earth, that Jesus Christ is LORD -- Count on it!

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