Welcome to Ruby on Racetracks!
Ruby on Racetracks combines the power of Ruby on Rails with the speed of NASCAR. Ruby on Rails is a great framework, but the stock procedures are so slow and complicated. Ruby on Racetracks uses an infrastructure that provides the elements needed for all or most projects already pre-installed and thus allows you to bypass many of the slow and bureaucratic steps needed to get started. Doubling down on automation, cheat sheets, pre-installation, and good standard operating procedures enables not only much faster work but also much better quality control as well.
In other words, Ruby on Racetracks has the same basic selling points as the much-advertised Hertz #1 Club Gold program, which touts the convenience and efficiency of bypassing the line at the rental counter. In contrast, using the time-consuming stock procedures provides an experience analogous to that of renting a car from Not Exactly Hertz in a Hertz commercial and enduring bad experiences like a long line at the rental counter, getting soaked by a torrential downpour, getting lost, and getting stranded.
Ruby on Racetracks enables faster Ruby on Rails development while doubling down on quality control by adhering to these core principles:
- Basic and routine tasks should be quick and easy.
- Maintenance should be quick and easy. If it isn’t, this magnifies the temptation to neglect it.
- A photographic memory should NOT be a requirement.
- That old Holiday Inn slogan was correct. The best surprise is no surprise.
- Large tasks should be broken down into many smaller tasks.
Long processes are the biggest obstacles in Ruby on Rails development. Even worse are long processes that require babysitting. It’s one thing for a long process to proceed without your intervention. It’s even worse when a process cannot proceed without your constant intervention. Installing Windows is a classic example of this.
It adds insult to injury when a long process fails. At least when a short process fails, it doesn’t take up that much time, you don’t have to wait to see the failure, and you can take corrective action that much sooner.