In one of my next articles for O''Reilly, Boss will ask CB or Paul to put together a **short** ''argument'' that he can use with his management and business customers to expand the IT group''s use of Rails. What follows is my current stab. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks, Bill ======================================================== What''s so special about Rails? The Business Edition Rails allows project teams to communicate more effectively and efficiently, to reduce the waste that miscommunication causes, and to reduce the costs of insuring against it. It does this by fundamentally enabling the use of working prototypes and automated tests in our development process. Prototypes are the most effective way to gather and validate the needs of consumers of I.T. systems. Business analysts can be quickly trained to produce Rails prototypes. And Rails prototypes aren''t "throw aways." They''re working Rails applications that the programming team extends to make "production ready." Automated testing is the most efficient way to execute large numbers of tests. In addition, experience has shown that the development of automated tests, done concurrently with the development of the code to be tested, increases the both the efficiency and effectiveness of the development process. Automated test capabilities are an integral part of the Rails framework. Testers can be quickly trained to produce automated test suites with Rails to deliver, along with the customer-validated prototypes, to the development team. Those tests provide guidance to development and provide assurance to the customer that the completed application will perform as required. The development team extends that test suite as it extends the prototype, providing ongoing assurance that the application performs both as required and as designed. And all of the tests can be delivered with the completed application to the Operations team to help them validate that the production environment is configured correctly and that the application is functioning correctly prior to "going live." Because business analysts and testers can use the same tool set the developers are using, Rails makes possible a level of communication that we''ve never had before. Our entire project team can "talk the same talk" and "walk the same walk." Used with intent and discipline, Rails can produce teams that are connected from idea to implementation; delivering more value, cheaper and faster. That''s special. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---