summary
Company
Situated in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, IDfusion Software has been developing custom software solutions for business since 1994.
Project
Create an application used to locate Manitoban Golf Courses, and build it using new methodologies and web technology.
Source
Tools
Golf Finder Manitoba
The Approach
IDfusion Software is always seeking ways to integrate new technologies into the solutions we offer our clients. Our ongoing research initiatives enable IDfusion and our clients to remain on the cutting edge of technology. Part of the process of investigating new technologies is creating "proof-of-concept" projects. These internal projects allow our developers to put the newest tools to the test. This enables us to incorporate these new tools into client solutions.
Golf Finder Manitoba originated as an internal tool for the golfers on staff at IDfusion Software to locate courses around the province. It was a simple pHp based site with a MySQL database. The kind of site IDfusion has been building for its client's for years: solid, dependable but falling behind new technology. IDfusion saw the opportunity to turn a small internal project into something powerful golfers all over the province could use, while at the same time giving IDfusion Software developers the chance to embrace amazing new technologies.
Thus, Golf Finder Manitoba underwent a redesign. In place of the old standard pHp would be one of the most popular emerging scripting languages on the web, Ruby. Already making use of the popular and user-friend Google Map's, IDfusion wanted a way to make the user experience even smoother. Developers looked to AJAX as the tool to let them polish the applications user experience to a shine. Finally, desiring to shy away from the limitations of HTML as much as possible, developers decided to move much of the design traditionally done in HTML to more powerful presentation features of CSS 2.0.
Why Ruby on Rails?
Ruby on Rails (ROR) is a framework using the Ruby language which is used to build web applications based on the very well known model-view-controller pattern. The set of tools included in the framework give the developer the ability of focus on the application without the frustration of fighting the chosen technology.
ROR provides a full structure right out of the box including code generators that will create the skeletons for the applications classes. In most cases a developer need only add a single line of code to the skeleton in order to bring their pages to life.
ROR also includes an engine for Object Relational Mapping which provides almost painless automatic storage into a relational database. This saves the programmer the effort of coding this layer to maintain and operate the data in the application.
Test driven development is an excellent technique which, among many other benefits, can be used to avoid long fixes and increase the overall quality of code. While ROR doesn't force developers to embrace this approach, the code generators are able to produce the complete test suite for the code they generate, making ROR an ideal tool for use with a Test driven development process.
AJAX Integration
For the past two years AJAX has been one of the hottest topics in IT magazines, books and websites.
When using AJAX a web application can communicate with the server, submitting and retrieving information, without reloading the page. This provides the user with an immediate response to his actions. AJAX benefits web applications by generating more interactive and highly responsive pages, bringing performance closer to the level of a desktop application.
The Ruby on Rails framework includes AJAX integration through a set of easy to use tags. This makes the task of using AJAX components to partially refresh data displayed on a web page much easier for a programmer to implement. The Golf Finder Manitoba application makes use of this functionality for its search and sort features.
Conclusion
Golf Finder Manitoba provides a powerful tool for golfers to use, and the experience gave the IDfusion team knowledge they can share with their clients. These types of projects are the results of IDfusion's research and development activity which balance production work with time to "play" and innovate. IDfusion is committed to an environmnent where the best software people in the world want to work.
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