Ruby to develop an ERP system

[elriba]

Hi,
I've developed an ERP system (accounting, inventory, payroll,
invoicing, etc...) for the company I work for using a compiled
language. It works fine, but compiling all those DLLs and EXEs does
take a long time, and as the application grows, it has become a pain to
mantain. The ERP system uses some 500 tables on an ODBC SQL database.

Could Ruby be used to develop such a system? Has it been used? Or
would I be pushing the limit of what Ruby can do?

Thanks in advance!

 

[dave]

you....this is a good question....i am newbie to ruby and i'm seriously
considering ruby for some of our business functions here tooo...there
are two objection i have to overcome for my boss....
1.) on going formal support if i should leave the firm...ie...he
doesn't like open source things because there are no 1-800 support
numbers or formal vendor support forums....his words not mine.....
2.)....i want the ruby expert to comment on this....my objection....
dollars and cents rounding error.....

.....otherwise, what kind of concurrent record locking does the
ActiveRecord in RoR do????....dave....

 

[gregarican]

1) http://www.rentacoder.com is an example of a source for assistance.
Most custom software that's not off the shelf doesn't necessarily come
with a toll free support number. You have to look for a third party
development group in one way, shape, or form.

2) If you are referring to floating point arithmetic then that's an
age-old issue, and in other languages than just Ruby. Google around and
you will see what I'm talking about. If you aren't talking about
floating point arithmetic then please provide an example source code
snippet.

Welcome to Ruby. I am sure you will enjoy what it can bring!

 

[gregarican]

Regarding point #2, here's an example as posted here -->
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/167708.

 

[smarkham01]

Your bosses objections are well founded and difficult to overcome. As
a boss, I, too, have faced these problems and overcome them on more
than one occasion. On the other hand, I've left things status quo a
number of times, too.

1. What happens when you leave the firm? Regardless of the language
used, the loss of a programmer is never pleasant. Are the languages
you using now any easier to hire instant experts on than Ruby? Who in
the world do you call when your C programmer leaves? Microsoft?
Borland? If you're using ksh sh or csh on your name brand Unix box,
does the brand holder respond to shell programming questions?
Languages come and go, if the lack of commercial support (this probably
includes the lack of training classes as well as the inability to hire
qualified programmers off the street) is being raised, it usually can't
be overcome.

2. Rounding errors - Yep, they happen. As long as you folks keep
using these new fangled computers, you'll have rounding errors. MS has
them, MicroFocus might have a BED (Binary Encoded Decimal) library that
helps keep their rounding errors in check. You either learn to code to
the errors or you buy or write a library for production use. Your boss
may need to see the rounding errors in MS products to understand, hell
I can come as close to correct as most MS product computations using a
slide rule.

Bottom line, continuity sometimes has to take precedence over new and
exciting. Even when new and exciting is clearly better.

 

[Drew]

Hi,
I've developed an ERP system (accounting, inventory, payroll,
invoicing, etc...) for the company I work for using a compiled
language. It works fine, but compiling all those DLLs and EXEs does
take a long time, and as the application grows, it has become a pain to
mantain. The ERP system uses some 500 tables on an ODBC SQL database.

Could Ruby be used to develop such a system? Has it been used? Or
would I be pushing the limit of what Ruby can do?

Thanks in advance!

I can't say for how fleshed out it was because I never saw it but a
good friend of mine developed a full featured ERP system using Ruby on
Rails for a semester long project in an honors business and computer
science program that he is in in college. He indicated that Rails made
most of it a snap - I'd suggest trying to recreate some of the
functions you require to see if it's something you'd like. There's no
need to reproduce the whole system to get a taste for whether Ruby or
Rails would be a good fit for the project.

 

[Trans]

Hi,
I've developed an ERP system (accounting, inventory, payroll,
invoicing, etc...) for the company I work for using a compiled
language. It works fine, but compiling all those DLLs and EXEs does
take a long time, and as the application grows, it has become a pain to
mantain. The ERP system uses some 500 tables on an ODBC SQL database.

Could Ruby be used to develop such a system? Has it been used? Or
would I be pushing the limit of what Ruby can do?

Thanks in advance!

Ruby can. I wrote such a system myself. In fact, I wrote it as a web
app on top of Rails-like system with Web2.0-like features before either
ever existed. Unfortuately that project was never completed, but only
for personal reasons. Ruby worked flawlessly and made code maintaince a
dream. I have no doubt in it's capabilities to handle such a project,
even under stess of say 1000 concurrent users.

I would recommend moving to a PostgreSQL data store though.

BTW I considered reviving my project at one point, but Rails hit the
scene just about then and since the really cool part wasn't the ERP
app, but the Rails-like part underneath, I decided to let it go.

T.

 

[David N. Welton]

Hi,
I've developed an ERP system (accounting, inventory, payroll,
invoicing, etc...) for the company I work for using a compiled
language. It works fine, but compiling all those DLLs and EXEs does
take a long time, and as the application grows, it has become a pain to
mantain. The ERP system uses some 500 tables on an ODBC SQL database.

Could Ruby be used to develop such a system? Has it been used? Or
would I be pushing the limit of what Ruby can do?

Something you might be interested in having a look at is OFBiz at
www.ofbiz.org. It's a big, open source ERP system that probably does a
lot of what you need, and wouldn't be difficult to extend to the rest.

Being in Java, it's not as pleasant (IMO) to work with as Ruby, but they
do have a community built around it, which is very important in terms of
getting help from people who know the domain you're working with. Using
something that's already out there might make management happier as well.

That said... it would be very interesting to see someone attempt
something similar to OFBiz with Rails, although it's probably still
missing some pieces of functionality to match all of what OFBiz has.
The data model that OFBiz is based on is complicated, but well thought out.

--
David N. Welton
- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
- http://www.dedasys.com/