Ruby in the Trenches

June 30, 2008

At our July 19, 2008 meeting Kris Hicks will present Automator, a tool used to automate the main web application at First American Title. Kris merged his knowledge of company business logic with technology (Ruby, Merb, and Watir) to build this internal app. Anyone who wants to learn more about packaging and distributing Ruby, browser automation with Watir, or building with Merb will find this talk interesting.

Drop by Meetup.com for the location and to RSVP. See you then!

The presentation will cover:

  • Why Automator was created.
  • How the app was initially designed & distributed, and why things changed.
  • Scaling problems and how they were solved.
  • Why Merb was chosen instead of Rails.
  • Browser automation with Watir.

The application is internal therefore no confidential code will be shown. However, our presenter will share working Watir code and the application stack.