Zero to Ecommerce in 12 hours

Well, how on earth to best describe the power of Rails. I just have a Rails e-commerce website in 12 hour. Nah, I did not use Spree E-commerce , but did it all by myself. I could not believe it took me so less time.

For people who are now thinking I am a webtech super man wait, here are the facts:

1. First the client is my friend, we have excellent communication between us
2. My friend unlike others is not a buggy customer, but is a great listener (this one is THE hug difference)
3. I have some e-commerce experience
4. The site isn’t full blown e-commerce system like spree, but I just listened to his requirements and coded for it
5. The 12 hours were spread over 3 days, it was not in a single stretch

How ever I did use one trick which I think others have used it too. This is a website where very niche products are sold. When some one places an order, and one has done something wrong, the person calls up the back office. The back office guy just logs into the site with just one flag set, and he in real time along with the user can shop! This is like you touring in the store with the marketing person. Well all projects must have something new 😉

The above thing might look cumbersome. but all we did was to set a admin flag and he (our back office guy) can use the same session as that of the customer. That’s it. I built the app in a way that admin functions and controls are interwoven with that of the normal user which reduces 80% of the code.

The code is ready for launch, and I am thinking of more back office automation for the next release. Plan well, and code happy!