Rails - Dec 2005 - How long would it take an experienced Rails developer to ...

Hi,

I was wondering if any experienced Rails developers would care
to offer a ballpark-conservative estimate of how long they expect
it would take them to implement a simple online ordering system?

This is something I''ll probably be doing soon, and although
I''m
new to Rails, I''m an experienced Ruby programmer and have rolled
my own simple websites with CGI before.  But I''ve never done 
online credit card transactions.

(I see there''s a library on rubyforge that works with Linkpoint,
which I''ll be looking into:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/transact/ )

I don''t think I''ll need a shopping cart, as the company
currently
has essentially one product, albeit with the need to handle both
new purchases and special pricing for upgrades from old versions.

But anyway - the first version of the site will need to be
functional, of course, but can be very simple.  Essentially I''ll
need to take orders, maintain customer/invoice records, and 
email a nightly record of the day''s transactions to the head 
office.  

Because I''m new to Rails, and haven''t done online credit card
processing before, that gives me a bit of uncertainty in my own
estimate.  I''d think two to three weeks is probably a safe
estimate for me to get the first useful version of the site 
online, allowing for those unknowns.

But I''d be interested in a reality check of sorts from experienced
Rails developers.  How long would you estimate a project like this,
assuming you had to code from scratch but could make use of any
publicly available libraries?

And are there any "gotchas" that I should be aware of that are
schedule risks with this kind of project that might cause me to
miss my estimate?

Thanks much for your feedback!

Regards,

Bill

On 12/8/05, Bill Kelly <billk-X1BUltpdjJs@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if any experienced Rails developers would care
> to offer a ballpark-conservative estimate of how long they expect
> it would take them to implement a simple online ordering system?
>
> This is something I''ll probably be doing soon, and although
I''m
> new to Rails, I''m an experienced Ruby programmer and have rolled
> my own simple websites with CGI before.  But I''ve never done
> online credit card transactions.
>
> (I see there''s a library on rubyforge that works with Linkpoint,
> which I''ll be looking into:
> http://rubyforge.org/projects/transact/ )
>
> I don''t think I''ll need a shopping cart, as the company
currently
> has essentially one product, albeit with the need to handle both
> new purchases and special pricing for upgrades from old versions.
>
> But anyway - the first version of the site will need to be
> functional, of course, but can be very simple.  Essentially I''ll
> need to take orders, maintain customer/invoice records, and
> email a nightly record of the day''s transactions to the head
> office.
>
> Because I''m new to Rails, and haven''t done online credit
card
> processing before, that gives me a bit of uncertainty in my own
> estimate.  I''d think two to three weeks is probably a safe
> estimate for me to get the first useful version of the site
> online, allowing for those unknowns.
>
> But I''d be interested in a reality check of sorts from experienced
> Rails developers.  How long would you estimate a project like this,
> assuming you had to code from scratch but could make use of any
> publicly available libraries?
>
> And are there any "gotchas" that I should be aware of that are
> schedule risks with this kind of project that might cause me to
> miss my estimate?
>
> Thanks much for your feedback!
A person with a few Rails projects under his belt, decent Ruby
programming skills, and experience in that problem domain could
probably do the bulk of that in a day or so.

If you had to learn from scratch, dunno, maybe two weeks?  A month or
two if you knew nothing about Ruby or databases or e-commerce?

Bill Kelly wrote:
> This is something I''ll probably be doing soon, and although
I''m
> new to Rails, I''m an experienced Ruby programmer and have rolled
> my own simple websites with CGI before.  But I''ve never done
online
> credit card transactions.
hi Bill,

Danger! Will Robinson, danger!  Please read this link first: 
http://usa.visa.com/business/accepting_visa/ops_risk_management/cisp.html
Although, I haven''t handled credit cards, I do know that Visa and other
credit card companies have handed down some very strict guidelines for 
security. If possible, try to use a 3rd party for credit cards, like 
PayPal. Not following the guidelines is painful. Your merchant 
priviledges are revoked on the third offense, which means you can''t 
process credit cards.

Sorry for no ruby/rails advice, but I thought this was very important.

Jason

Hi Bill-

I''m not an experienced Rails developer, but...

...you didn''t mention "*Agile Web Development with Rails" *in
your email.
Pick up a copy if you don''t have it already.  It walks you through
creating
an online store, minus the credit card processing.

The amazon link is:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097669400X/qid=1134067125/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-7674914-6630464?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

But I''ve recently gone back and purchased the PDF version of the book
from
the authors, I find that easier to refer to while I''m tinkering with
Rails

http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/rails/index.html


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Joe Van Dyk wrote:
> A person with a few Rails projects under his belt, decent Ruby
> programming skills, and experience in that problem domain could
> probably do the bulk of that in a day or so.
> 
> If you had to learn from scratch, dunno, maybe two weeks?  A month or
> two if you knew nothing about Ruby or databases or e-commerce?
I think that either this estimate is dangerously optimistic, or my
expectations of "functional" are way too high. Ruby, or Rails for that
matter give an incredible productivity boost, but this is only limited to
programming itself.

It is very dangerous to think that armed with this shiny weapon called
Rails all projects will last 10 times less ... it is much realistic to say
that now we can do a *lot* more with limited *programming* time. Don''t
set
unrealistic expectations, or you''ll be bound for failure.

In my experience time is consumed on understanding the requirements,
discovering the actual needs of the user, and trying to live with the
constraints that are inherent from the project itself. OK that you can
prototype faster with Rails, but this will not give a 10x boost on the
*entire* *project* duration.

Zsombor

-- 
Company  - http://primalgrasp.com
Thoughts - http://deezsombor.blogspot.com

On Dec 8, 2005, at 10:11 AM, Bill Kelly wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if any experienced Rails developers would care
> to offer a ballpark-conservative estimate of how long they expect
> it would take them to implement a simple online ordering system?
>
> This is something I''ll probably be doing soon, and although
I''m
> new to Rails, I''m an experienced Ruby programmer and have rolled
> my own simple websites with CGI before.  But I''ve never done
online
> credit card transactions.
>
> (I see there''s a library on rubyforge that works with Linkpoint,
> which I''ll be looking into:
> http://rubyforge.org/projects/transact/ )
>
> I don''t think I''ll need a shopping cart, as the company
currently
> has essentially one product, albeit with the need to handle both
> new purchases and special pricing for upgrades from old versions.
>
> But anyway - the first version of the site will need to be
> functional, of course, but can be very simple.  Essentially I''ll
> need to take orders, maintain customer/invoice records, and email a  
> nightly record of the day''s transactions to the head office.
> Because I''m new to Rails, and haven''t done online credit
card
> processing before, that gives me a bit of uncertainty in my own
> estimate.  I''d think two to three weeks is probably a safe
> estimate for me to get the first useful version of the site online,  
> allowing for those unknowns.
>
> But I''d be interested in a reality check of sorts from experienced
> Rails developers.  How long would you estimate a project like this,
> assuming you had to code from scratch but could make use of any
> publicly available libraries?
>
> And are there any "gotchas" that I should be aware of that are
> schedule risks with this kind of project that might cause me to
> miss my estimate?
>
> Thanks much for your feedback!
>
> Regards,
>
> Bill
Bill-

	It sounds like you need a simple system to process these  
transactions. If you want to do it quickly I have a method that has  
worked for me. I built the shop part of this web site in about 12  
hours of rails time:  http://vintnerssecret.com. They way it works is  
I use Verisign Payflow Link. Which is a hosted service that works  
like this:

You collect some information on your site but no sensitive info that  
needs ssl. I collect the name, email and shipping address as well as  
the product  name, quantity, price with shipping and tax where  
applicable and an order number.

I save this information in an admin only db in my rails app organized  
by order id

Then post this info to your hosted site at verisign where they take  
care of the ssl stuff and you don''t have to pay for a certificate.  
You can customize this page to fit with your site design to some extent.

While on the hosted site the customer enters their credit card info  
and gets a denied or approved message.

Then they are sent back to your site and the details about approval  
can be posted back to your site as well.

You and your customer receive a customized email from verisign as to  
the disposition of the order.

I have made a simple admin area where the client can post new  
products and well as look at pending order information. When you  
receive the confirmation or denial of the cc transaction form  
verisign you match it up by order id with the to be shipped section  
in the admin area and check off the items that you will be shipping  
so they can be saved into a past transactions db table and the denied  
orders can be saved to an old denied orders table for retrieval later.


	This is an easy way to get an online ordering system up quickly  
without the need to worry about all the security details on your own  
site. The cost is somewhere around $250 a year for up to 800  
transactions a month with a small fee for each transaction over this  
limit. It has worked great for me so far and I have used it in a few  
sites where the client is plenty happy with the results. If you need  
higher transaction  limits you can alwayts upgrade to payflow pro  
which is a more typical ecommerce solution where you hot your own  
secure forms.

	This is IMHO the quickest way to get a simple online payment  
processor online quickly and securely. Contact me off list of you  
want any more details about this setup and I am happy to answer your  
questions.

Cheers-

-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
http://yakimaherald.com
509-577-7732
ezra-gdxLOakOTQ9oetBuM9ipNAC/G2K4zDHf@public.gmane.org

On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 10:41:59AM -0800, Jason wrote:
> But I''ve recently gone back and purchased the PDF version of the
book from
> the authors, I find that easier to refer to while I''m tinkering
with Rails
Can you give some indication of what "personal information" they put
into
the PDF "for your protection"?  I was going to get the PDFs of AWDWR
and the
Pickaxe, but when I saw that in their FAQ, I ran away screaming.

- Matt

On 12/8/05, Matthew Palmer
<mpalmer-DBKuw+mdLfRAfugRpC6u6w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 10:41:59AM -0800, Jason wrote:
> > But I''ve recently gone back and purchased the PDF version of
the book from
> > the authors, I find that easier to refer to while I''m
tinkering with Rails
>
> Can you give some indication of what "personal information" they
put into
> the PDF "for your protection"?  I was going to get the PDFs of
AWDWR and the
> Pickaxe, but when I saw that in their FAQ, I ran away screaming.
At the bottom of each page, it would say...
"Prepared exclusively for Matthew Palmer"

They''re generous enough to give the pdf''s out completely
unlocked, I
think that''s added to give you another reason not to distribute it (if
you needed another reason).  Think of it as ''guiltware'' ;)
> - Matt
--
Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)

I have AWDwR PDF and all I see is my name.


On 8-Dec-05, at 1:43 PM, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 10:41:59AM -0800, Jason wrote:
>> But I''ve recently gone back and purchased the PDF version of
the
>> book from
>> the authors, I find that easier to refer to while I''m
tinkering
>> with Rails
>
> Can you give some indication of what "personal information" they
> put into
> the PDF "for your protection"?  I was going to get the PDFs of  
> AWDWR and the
> Pickaxe, but when I saw that in their FAQ, I ran away screaming.
>
> - Matt
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

Jason Edgecombe wrote:
> Bill Kelly wrote:
>> my own simple websites with CGI before.  But I''ve never done
online
>> credit card transactions.
> 
> Danger! Will Robinson, danger!  Please read this link first: 
> http://usa.visa.com/business/accepting_visa/ops_risk_management/cisp.html
> Although, I haven''t handled credit cards, I do know that Visa and
other
> credit card companies have handed down some very strict guidelines for 
> security. If possible, try to use a 3rd party for credit cards, like 
> PayPal. Not following the guidelines is painful. Your merchant 
> priviledges are revoked on the third offense, which means you
can''t
> process credit cards.
On the flip side, I''ve found the Visa people extremely helpful
in helping a company through the process - both when we first
set up the payment system, and when we were having problems
with excessive chargebacks from international orders.

But yes, for small sites (say, under $10K per day) I agree
that going with a third party like a Digital River is easier.
But once your volume is high enough it''s not that painful
to work directly with banks and credit card processing
companies directly; and if nothing else, makes your
negotiations for price with 3rd party payment companies easier.

Ron M wrote:
> On the flip side, I''ve found the Visa people extremely helpful
> in helping a company through the process - both when we first
> set up the payment system, and when we were having problems
> with excessive chargebacks from international orders.
> But yes, for small sites (say, under $10K per day) I agree
> that going with a third party like a Digital River is easier.
> IBut once your volume is high enough it''s not that painful
> to work directly with banks and credit card processing
> companies directly; and if nothing else, makes your
> negotiations for price with 3rd party payment companies easier.
I don''t know anything about this from the business side, but as a 
consumer, I have had a couple of rotten experiences with Digital River, 
and I won''t be buying your product if your only payment method is 
through Digital River.

I don''t know whether it is on the merchant side, or Digital
River''s
side, but I have often bought a product through DR, been informed that 
my unlocking code is in the mail and then suffered for days and weeks 
before I received the code, or worse, received the code, and then had it 
take weeks before the code is recognized on the merchant site.

Also, DR seem to handle e-mail marketing for a number of merchants and 
they seem to have a problem fulfilling unsubscribe requests.

Most of the Windows anti-virus companies depend on Digital River. Just 
another reason I am glad I have been able to move off of Windows.

-- 

Ray

Ron M wrote:
> On the flip side, I''ve found the Visa people extremely helpful
> in helping a company through the process - both when we first
> set up the payment system, and when we were having problems
> with excessive chargebacks from international orders.
> But yes, for small sites (say, under $10K per day) I agree
> that going with a third party like a Digital River is easier.
> IBut once your volume is high enough it''s not that painful
> to work directly with banks and credit card processing
> companies directly; and if nothing else, makes your
> negotiations for price with 3rd party payment companies easier.
I don''t know anything about this from the business side, but as a 
consumer, I have had a couple of rotten experiences with Digital River, 
and I won''t be buying your product if your only payment method is 
through Digital River.

I don''t know whether it is on the merchant side, or Digital
River''s
side, but I have often bought a product through DR, been informed that 
my unlocking code is in the mail and then suffered for days and weeks 
before I received the code, or worse, received the code, and then had it 
take weeks before the code is recognized on the merchant site.

Also, DR seem to handle e-mail marketing for a number of merchants and 
they seem to have a problem fulfilling unsubscribe requests.

Most of the Windows anti-virus companies depend on Digital River. Just 
another reason I am glad I have been able to move off of Windows.

-- 

Ray