

Rails Maturity Model...Let's boil it down - laktek
http://groups.google.com/group/rails-business/browse_thread/thread/e24cfda7947fda10/442e8f86edb4ccde

======
teej
The original post, reprinted here verbatim:

A couple of Railsconfs ago, Courtenay and I did indeed discuss certification
and I advocated an organization to set guidelines for what the characteristics
and measurements that set apart a successful and disciplined Rails shop apart
from the unwashed masses. Rather than trying to certify individuals (too easy
to game!) I think it would be useful to have a certification process for
organizations that involved an actual extensive interview process and audit of
code and practices, with associated scorecards and registration in some sort
of official directory. Yes, you would have to pay handsomely to get this
certification, and the result would not necessarily be what you expect. The
details for this is all very rough and frankly I don't know the value of it,
just an idea that's been in the back of my mind for a long time so I'm putting
it out there for debate.

The name and concept is somewhat influenced by CMM, which I suppose is
anathema to most Agilistas. I'm the first to admit that I don't know much
about CMM other than it provides a scoring system for organizations.

In a Rails context, you would establish a scorecard that categorized your shop
on a scale of 0 to 3 (or whatever, just thinking out loud here)

RMM0 "aka Cowboy level" \- No formal development process \- No test coverage
\- No standardized business practices \- Static analysis failures

RMM1 and RMM2 would have to be something in-between. RMM1 is considered
negative. RMM2 is considered positive.

RMM3 "aka Master level" (Purposely exclusive territory here, I can imagine
that only a handful of shops in the world could achieve this level!) \- Agile
software development practices \- 100% test coverage WITH THE APPROPRIATE
TYPES OF TESTS (For instance, at Hashrocket lately we are doing much less unit
testing at the MVC level because automated acceptance and integration testing
with Cucumber is so powerful and effective. \- 100% pair-programming (muahaha)
\- Formal and standardized business practices \- Institutionalized continuous
learning and process improvement \- Positive customer testimonials \-
Successful deployment of Rails application(s) with substantial scaling demands

Incidentally, I'm bringing this up for discussion, but I might be interested
in a joint-venture along these lines with an out of work senior Rails
developer that feels like taking the idea and running with it. (Rick?) In fact
I can envision the idea expanding to the point where being a RMM auditor could
be a profitable little part-time gig for Rails freelancers with the right
personality type and enthusiasm.

Obie Fernandez CEO & Founder | Hashrocket 904.435.1671 office 404.934.9201
mobile

Hashrocket, Inc. 320 N 1st Street Suite 712 Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250

<http://hashrocket.com> <http://obiefernandez.com>

------
swombat
Many in the Rails community are finding this to be exceptionally worthless and
stupid, for the record.

------
obiefernandez
I've summed up my thoughts in a blog post:
[http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2009/02/rails-
maturity...](http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2009/02/rails-maturity-
model.html)

Totally backing off the idea of certification, but still think a defined RMM
is a good idea.

Cheers, Obie

