# RoR on-line store or OSCommerce? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 23, 2007, 2:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689 "2007-04-23T02:26:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 2:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/1 "2007-04-23T02:26:30Z")
Hello everyone, I am in the process or searching for some info that will help me deciding what is better -1) to create my own on-line store in RoR or -2) to use the open source solutio Oscommerce What will be the pros and cons to create from scratch my own RoR on-line store? Please advice ---
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 3:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/2 "2007-04-23T03:42:14Z")
Hi Jose, Not a direct answer to your question, but here are two resources to check out: I have both these books and they are both good value ! [http://agilewebdevelopment.com/rails-ecommerce](http://agilewebdevelopment.com/rails-ecommerce) [http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10178](http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10178) Both available as e-books, so outlay is minimal ! HTH - Dave P. On Apr 23, 8:26 am, Jose P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 4:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/3 "2007-04-23T04:12:17Z")
or use an existing rails ecommerce host, like [http://shopify.com/](http://shopify.com/) ? ---
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 2:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/4 "2007-04-24T14:26:40Z")
Oscommerce is a terrible mess of spaghetti code. It’s architecture violates most of the principles of software design we’re so eagerly pursuing in rails. Business logic mixed right into the HTML. (a very PHP-centric design) No unit tests. A very rigid page flow that’s a headache to alter. You may notice that it’s been years since oscommerce’s last release: 2.2. On the other hand, if you want something that works out of the box, don’t intend to touch the code, and don’t mind asking your customers to click through some slightly annoying forms, have a look at oscommerce. ---
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 11:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/5 "2007-04-24T23:43:01Z")
Trevor S., What about RoR solutions? wrote: > Oscommerce is a terrible mess of spaghetti code. It’s architecture > violates > most of the principles of software design we’re so eagerly pursuing in > rails. > > Business logic mixed right into the HTML. (a very PHP-centric design) > No unit tests. > A very rigid page flow that’s a headache to alter. > > You may notice that it’s been years since oscommerce’s last release: > 2.2. > > On the other hand, if you want something that works out of the box, > don’t > intend to touch the code, and don’t mind asking your customers to click > through some slightly annoying forms, have a look at oscommerce. ---
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 1:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/6 "2007-04-25T01:21:17Z")
Depending on your needs you may be better off doing a custom Rails store. I did one and documented at lot of my notes on my blog: [http://clickablebliss.com/blog/2007/03/11/building\_the\_store/](http://clickablebliss.com/blog/2007/03/11/building_the_store/) ~ Mike ---
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 1:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/7 "2007-04-25T13:37:42Z")
My experience is that if you plan to modify anything (even just the look/feel) it’s cheaper in the long run to make if from scratch. Every time we’ve tried to “save time” by using something like OSCommerce it’s ended up costing us more in time spent than if we had just built it from scratch. One alternative might be shopify, as has been mentioned. I’ve never done a production site using it, but I’ve played around with it quite a bit. Looks like it’s super easy to design themes for it, and it’s very feature rich. Good luck! – Nathan Garza AshLeaf Media | President * * * [www.ashleafmedia.com](http://www.ashleafmedia.com) | removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid | 832.514.5726 ---
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/8 "2007-04-23T23:21:44Z")
I have Found this: [http://dev.subimage.com/projects/substruct](http://dev.subimage.com/projects/substruct) ---
**Author:** ![jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@jsn1](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jsn1)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 12:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ror-on-line-store-or-oscommerce/92689/9 "2007-04-26T00:12:17Z")
Mike Zornek, have you tried [http://dev.subimage.com/projects/substruct](http://dev.subimage.com/projects/substruct) ?? wrote: > Depending on your needs you may be better off doing a custom Rails > store. I > did one and documented at lot of my notes on my blog: > > [http://clickablebliss.com/blog/2007/03/11/building\_the\_store/](http://clickablebliss.com/blog/2007/03/11/building_the_store/) > > ~ Mike