ANN: preview of a new, large RoR site

Rails
1

IMPORTANT NOTE: Responding to this message on the mailing list and
quoting
the URL below will make the it entirely too available on the web. I am
posting this with X-No-Archive: yes in the header to prevent Google from
indexing it (see
http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=7918
for details). Please, if you respond to this on the list, do not quote
the
URL below.

In May of this year I joined a startup founded by Steve Case, of AOL
fame,
to revolutionize the healthcare industry. I found out about the job due
to
a posting here, on the Ruby on Rails mailing list, when I was not
looking
for a new job and had just played with RoR on the side.

We have both used and modified RoR to produce the website, and I hope
that
we will be able to release our modifications and improvements
eventually.
In particular, I hope that our legal team will allow us to share some of
what we have learned about deploying a large RoR site (hint: Capistrano
is
necessary but not sufficient). After months of working feverishly, we
have
a live web portal. (Regrettably, we didn’t get a chance to make things
work
well with all browsers, but both Firefox and Internet Explorer should
work
well.)

The site is neither complete nor flawless, but I’m proud of what we have
and excited about its future. It is my pleasure to give you the
opportunity
to preview the site. We are live on the web, but not yet fully open to
the
public.

Start at Everyday Health: Trusted Medical Information, Expert Health Advice, News, Tools, and Resources and
register. Registration is free, and always will be, but it is required
to
access the site during this preview period. From there, I encourage you
to
look at the Doctors and Hospitals tabs, which is the part of the site I
worked on the most. Please send feedback on any part of the site via the
feedback link at the top of every page. You can also send it to me, if
you
prefer.

Once you’ve had a chance to look around, I encourage you to send the URL
above to other people you know who might be interested in either seeing
a
large scale RoR site or in the site itself. Likewise, encourage them to
spread the word (and the URL). Please refrain from posting the URL to
any
websites, however; this is a preview limited to those directly and
indirectly connected to Revolution employees.

–Greg

2

Site wouldn’t let me register. Kept getting a popup telling me to ‘fill
in
all fields before…’

3

On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 01:25:14PM -0600, Bill W. wrote:
} Site wouldn’t let me register. Kept getting a popup telling me to
‘fill in
} all fields before…’

Is anyone else experiencing this? I assume you made sure that you did
fill
in all the fields, right, including checking the terms of service
agreement?

–Greg

4

Hi Greg,

Just tried and got the popup. Noticed there was no ‘check’ mark next to
my
birthdate. And I did not select the options to have information emailed
to
me; I did indicate I did read the terms of service.

Cheers,
Mel

5

G,

I’ll make a note to steer clear of this site.

The proper way to advertise is to BUY a keyword
from google rather than spamming a list.

The fact that Steve Case is involved does not surprise me.

Spamming a mail-list sounds like something he would
think is a brilliant business move.

If you want to share your code that would be friendly.

On 12/26/06, Gregory S. [email protected] wrote:

In May of this year I joined a startup founded by Steve Case, of AOL fame,
work
register. Registration is free, and always will be, but it is required to
websites, however; this is a preview limited to those directly and
indirectly connected to Revolution employees.

–Greg

–
Peter S.
[email protected]
http://GoodJobFastCar.com

6

Seems pretty buggy. Got infinite redirect loops and other stuff going
on. I wasn’t able to get access to anything (but I did register).

So, what makes the site “large”? Also, do you have anything to
contribute besides just “announcing” your site?

-carl

On 12/26/06, Peter S. [email protected] wrote:

think is a brilliant business move.

for details). Please, if you respond to this on the list, do not quote the
what we have learned about deploying a large RoR site (hint: Capistrano is
public.
Once you’ve had a chance to look around, I encourage you to send the URL

–
EPA Rating: 3000 Lines of Code / Gallon (of coffee)

7

On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 04:26:04PM -0800, Peter S. wrote:
} G,
}
} I’ll make a note to steer clear of this site.
}
} The proper way to advertise is to BUY a keyword
} from google rather than spamming a list.

This isn’t precisely advertising, and certainly not spamming, though it
could be considered viral marketing. I’ll point out that numerous other
Rails sites have been announced on this list. I’m not sure why this
announcement in particular is the target of your venom.

I’ll also point out that I specifically requested that you not include
the
URL in a response to this message, yet you did so anyway. Not cool.

} The fact that Steve Case is involved does not surprise me.
}
} Spamming a mail-list sounds like something he would
} think is a brilliant business move.

First off, I’m not Steve Case. Second, I made the decision to send the
email to the mailing list on my own. Third, I’ll repeat that it is
inaccurate to call this spam.

} If you want to share your code that would be friendly.

I’m in favor of sharing what we can, but ultimately I work for a
corporation that, like most other corporations, has a legal department
concerned about intellectual property. What I’ve had time to document
and
I’ve been comfortable would not upset legal is at
redcorundum.blogspot.com
(plus a variety of messages to the ruby-talk list and this list).

On the other hand, unpleasantness like your message reduces my
motivation
to push the legal department to allow us to release anything. You make
me
care less about the community of which we are both a part. Was that your
intention?

–Greg

8

Hi,
I see your message as spam, but to each his own…

Even if you never see a line of code from us, the mere
existence of such a site makes it significantly easier to justify Rails as
a development platform for developers working in an “enterprise” setting.

Er, I fail to see the logic in this statement. First of all, what
makes your social networking site about medical facilities anywhere
remotely near “enterprise”?

Secondly, while it’s good to see another Rails site, I don’t see how
this one single site is going to justify Rails any more than any other
serious site like Strongspace or Shopify. Is it just because Steve
Case is involved? Because everyone knows that he is a titan in the
tech industry… shrug

–Jeremy

9

Just because this is a corporate rails site, someone complains. If
37signals posted about their new app here, no one would complain saying
“buy a keyword” - and they’re funded by Jeff Bezos.

From the looks of it, revolution is a modulized app with way over 100
controllers on the public face.

I’m a bit curious as to the business model, but I figure I can ask
people I know who work there and get a better answer than I’d get in a
web forum.

10

On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 04:43:18PM -0800, Carl L. wrote:
} Seems pretty buggy. Got infinite redirect loops and other stuff going
} on. I wasn’t able to get access to anything (but I did register).

Was this with Safari, by any chance? There are known issues with
redirect
loops on Safari. We’ll be nailing down issues with Safari in the coming
weeks (and at least some of us will pay attention to Opera as well).
Eventually we’ll even get to section 508 compliance. The site is,
indeed, a
bit buggy, which is why this is a preview announcement, not a release of
a
full, ready-for-prime-time site. Nonetheless, I do encourage you to try
it
out again in Firefox or IE. (If you got into a redirect loop on one of
those, however, please send me email privately to let me know how; we’ll
need to get that fixed ASAP.)

} So, what makes the site “large”? Also, do you have anything to
} contribute besides just “announcing” your site?

The site is large in that there is lots of functionality, lots of pages,
lots of content, lots of moving parts, and an expectation of lots of
users.

As for contributions, I’ve been actively participating on this list and
the
ruby-talk list for close to a year, as well as posting some tips at
redcorundum.blogspot.com. Furthermore, a truly large Rails-based site
that
can handle huge amounts of traffic, as ours eventually must, is itself a
contribution. Even if you never see a line of code from us, the mere
existence of such a site makes it significantly easier to justify Rails
as
a development platform for developers working in an “enterprise”
setting.

} -carl
–Greg

11

Could you elaborate a bit more on why you choose rails and why not a
“proven” or “robust” framework like asp.net / java/spring. Aren’t you
afraid that soon the “advantages” of rails are going to kick you from
behind (speedy development, but rails/ruby isn’t the most stable
solution… maintenance / keeping the site running might proof more
difficult in the future)

What I understand your “app” (like all ;)) is basically a front-end to
a database, letting people exchange info and more fancy searching. You
could do that in any language. While browsing the site already feels a
bit slowish (it takes a noticeable time to get the page, but it renders
quick enough (only the second time, the first time it needs to fetch
all the appropriate images etc)).

12

Well,

I like the fact that it is a corporate site.

I want, however, to see the app [or pieces] sitting in rubyforge.

I want to download it and look at the code.

If I want to see a really kewl corporate website,
I have thousands [millions?] to choose from.

If Gregory wants to release some code and say that
it runs his corporate site, I’d consider that a service
to the community.

Discussion about biz models is a gray area.

I like the fact that Gregory defended himself and pointed out
some of his contributions.

Steve Case?
He’s a dork.
Unless he wants to hire me.
Then… He’s a tech-titan-revolutionary-genius.

37signals?
I see evidence of their doings in the Rails test-cases.
They pass muster.

…Peter

On 12/26/06, boboroshi [email protected] wrote:

people I know who work there and get a better answer than I’d get in a
web forum.

–
Peter S.
[email protected]
http://GoodJobFastCar.com

13

On Wed, Dec 27, 2006 at 08:34:41PM -0000, Norjee wrote:
} Could you elaborate a bit more on why you choose rails and why not a
} “proven” or “robust” framework like asp.net / java/spring. Aren’t you
} afraid that soon the “advantages” of rails are going to kick you from
} behind (speedy development, but rails/ruby isn’t the most stable
} solution… maintenance / keeping the site running might proof more
} difficult in the future)

Major decisions only occasionally have a single motivating force. I can
give an incomplete list, though:

  • Beating the Averages is nominally about Lisp, but the
    same
    applies to Ruby.
  • people already working for the company were excited about RoR
  • people already working for the company were excited about open source
    in
    general
  • in a large company, the risk/reward balance pushes toward a “proven”
    framework because the reward of shipping on time does not outweigh the
    risk of high maintenance costs in the future; in a startup, the risk
    of
    shipping late is really the risk of the company as a whole failing
    (i.e.
    running out of seed money before shipping), thus outweighs pretty much
    any future reward

} What I understand your “app” (like all ;)) is basically a front-end to
} a database, letting people exchange info and more fancy searching. You
} could do that in any language. While browsing the site already feels a
} bit slowish (it takes a noticeable time to get the page, but it
renders
} quick enough (only the second time, the first time it needs to fetch
} all the appropriate images etc)).

There is a lot of JS, a lot of CSS, and a fair amount of image data as
well. The vast majority of it is shared across the site, but there is an
upfront cost to loading it the first time. It also isn’t too surprising
that the site is a bit slow in general; we’re still scaling out and
we’re
still tuning.

I suppose you could consider almost any interesting web app out there to
be
a front-end to a database, but that’s like saying that Textmate is a
front-end to the filesystem; it’s technically true, but doesn’t really
tell
the whole story. Ideally, we’d like our site to be the place where
everyone
involved in healthcare, whether consumers, providers, insurers,
facilities,
etc. can come together and make things cheaper and easier for each
other.
In the same way that eBay reduced friction and inefficiencies between
buyers and sellers, we’d like to reduce friction and inefficiencies
between
those who need care and those who provide it (or insure it, or research
it,
etc.). It’s a pretty grandiose plan, and we’ve only take the first
little
steps. There’s no guarantee that it will work out, of course, but it’s a
worth a try.

–Greg

14

Greg,

When you get a chance, could you share some metrics about the project?
Things like number of models, tables, views and maybe even lines of
code? That might give the group a better sense of the scope of what you
have achieved.

-Paul

15

On Thu, Dec 28, 2006 at 08:26:10AM -0800, Paul C. wrote:
} When you get a chance, could you share some metrics about the project?
} Things like number of models, tables, views and maybe even lines of
} code? That might give the group a better sense of the scope of what
you
} have achieved.

Anything accurate would be exactly the sort of thing that would have
legal breathing down my neck. I’ll give some very rough numbers, though:

  • over 300 models
  • over 200 tables
  • over 1500 views, including partials
  • over 150 controllers

You can get a sense of the quantity of JS and CSS on your own from the
site
itself.

} -Paul
–Greg

16

…

It’s a pretty grandiose plan, and we’ve only take the first little
steps. There’s no guarantee that it will work out, of course, but it’s a
worth a try.

–Greg

You have an interesting line of thought. I myself would never risk to
deploy a project on such a scale on rails but i understand your
reasoning. I myself find that what language I code in isn’t nearly as
important the “feel” (design pattern for example) of the entire
project, writing 1 or 5 lines of code to code some little procedure
isn’t all that important. (yes, my first impression of rails was
wow!!! amazing… but the amazement is slowly replaced by a certain
amount of distrust… all my personal opinion of course)
I hope you manage to pull it off, it’s certainly an interesting project
:slight_smile:

17

If it is completely closed source,
how do we know it runs on rails?

Peter S.
[email protected]
http://GoodJobFastCar.com

18

On 12/26/06, Jeremy McAnally [email protected] wrote:

Hi,
I see your message as spam, but to each his own…

How is this announcement spam? The original post was a bit strange,
with the “important note” about not quoting a url posted to a public
list. Yet its definitely not spam.

Countless people have announced their new rails projects to the list,
many of which are completely closed source. As Rails is still so
young, I think its exciting to see all sorts of real world projects
getting launched - from the tiny ‘guy in a garage’ app to huge things
like Revolution is trying.

If this message is spam, then there are about 20 other announcements
sent to the list monthly that should be called out.

  • Rob

–

http://www.ajaxian.com

19

Greg,

I for one am glad you posted about your app. I’d love to hear more
about it, and in particular any changes you guys had to make to RoR, or
any extensions, etc. Especially if you can’t release any source, I’d be
interested in hearing what you guys did just the same. I’m both shocked
and embarrassed by the bad attitude from the other list members. I can
never figure out why people find so much pleasure in bashing others. I
bet they wouldn’t say it to your face. :slight_smile: Good luck.

Cheers,
John

20

On 12/28/06, Dan B. [email protected] wrote:

If it is completely closed source,
how do we know it runs on rails?

Peter S.
[email protected]
http://GoodJobFastCar.com

Okay this is getting ridiculous, and I don’t even care about
Revolution one way or the other.