Back Riding Rails

Thankfully, I'm done working with Hibernate for a while and I'm back on Rails.

Since I posted on FRail :include, it seems there has been a lot of plugin development to add this functionality. While all of these plugins help to address the problem, I'm having a hard time finding one to address my specific scenario.

I think I've explained my situation before, but here it is again in a nutshell. The company I work for aggregates a lot of data. The goal of my application is to allow users to sift out the information they don't need, discovering nuggets of truly useful knowledge. The approach we're taking is to have users to start from something they're interested in, and use that object to find other objects with similar attributes and characteristics. What I really need from Rails is a robust way to join a lot of tables together and specify search criteria.

I've decided to roll my own solution for now. What I'm developing in Rails will take in one or more "objects of interest", and use it's attributes to search the DB. Right now, I'm manually creating the join strings in order to get something done quickly. Eventually, I'm hoping to develop a more robust solution (or one of the ":include" solutions evolves to match my needs more closely).

Surprisingly, this solution has not taken as long to implement as I originally thought it would. That's the joy of Ruby on Rails!

Comments

Mr. Turton said…
Vinnie -
I just read 3 of your posts. You definitely on working on some interesting and useful projects. I am teaching a Computer Applications course at ACHS this spring and the students will be getting credit at ECC. I am adding a module on Computer Programming to provide them with a basic understanding of programming. They would benefit greatly from a expert like yourself spending a hour telling them what you do, introducing career opportunities, giving them hints on their projects, and helping me make sure my curriculum is in line with current and future industrial needs.
I hope to talk to you soon.
- Allen
August 20, 2007 at 12:55 PM
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