The Fast and the Furious On Rails

Instant gratification is one of the real joys of developing software. Like many other crafts, coding shapes raw materials into a novel work. Tap-tap-tap and a new machine is born.

Perhaps it’s no wonder that so many developers have adopted frameworks such as Ruby on Rails. Given tools such as routes, the ActiveRecord object-relational mapping (ORM), migrations, and a vast collection of open source contributions, it’s easy to realize features quickly.

But before you go all fast and furious, you must first leave the driveway. In the case of Rails, prep typically requires the installation of your essential gems and plug-ins, a modicum of configuration, the (re)creation of helpful initializers, and more. Certainly, setup occurs once, but repetition quickly becomes painful — like driving the Audi R8 super car through Midtown traffic.

Here’s a picture of the R8 to emphasize the point. Ouch.