How Not to Build a Service

In building the RM-Manage service, we experienced problems of all types:

• Not invented here: building unnecessary technology instead of using standard technology
• The customer as a trained poodle: making the customer jump through hoops just to use the service
• Inappropriate technology: using the wrong tool for the job
• Know your target market: enterprise systems management + $40/month customer = disaster
• Failure to leverage Ruby’s strengths: not a single yield in the entire code base!

We’ve spent the last 6 months fixing these issues. This talk will examine these problems and what we did to fix them.