Hi Rails folks.
I have a client who has been running oscommerce for many years. And
I, back in that day, helped him deploy it. I have deployed over 40
oscommerce installations and done 1000+ hours of customizing for
various folks. Not that I am an expert, but at least you know I’ve
suffered.
His store really hums now. But he hates the bloat of oscommerce, and
the mingling of controller logic with presentation. Anybody who has
messed with oscommerce knows what I’m talking about. And there are
still bugs deep in the oscommerce code that surface sometimes.
This client is a computer science guy, but he has a head for
business. He has to run the shop and doesn’t have time to develop
code.
The other day I showed him rails. We spent a few days and he loved
it.
His question now is: What solutions are out there for his store in
rails-land? I’ve poked around substruct and it is nice, but it has no
paypal support, which is a must. Shopify is grand, but they shield
you from the database and code, and we want to be able to tweak.
Any recommendations? First of all, he is willing to hire someone to
do it from scratch if that is the best option. Is that the best
option?
One thing he dreams of is to have one database that keeps track of
product inventories and descriptions, and be able to deploy multiple
stores that sell items from that one database. Has anyone done
anything like this?
Has anyone ever built a rails shopping cart / store that could
coexist with oscommerce, i.e, use the same database?
Your thoughts and wisdom are greatly appreciated. Eventually I will
need to hire someone, and if anyone has any ideas about the best way
to go about that, I would be grateful.
Phil