Test Or Catch Fire: Chris Bonser at Khorus
We discuss transitioning from Rails to Ember, how Khorus is improving transparency and communication within teams, and how testing is used when failure states including catching on fire.
This episode was originally posted to real-world-ember.com on Feb 17, 2016. http://www.real-world-ember.com/7
Learn Ember 2 at https://www.emberschool.com
Chris Bonser- before Ember
Programming professionally for 11 years
Started out with Electrical Engineering/hardware
Learned Ruby by building test equipment
We heard you like tests, so we’re testing the code that tests the equipment that tests the microchips
Stuff could literally catch on fire, something which actually happened while he was in the factory
Ember
Been doing Ember about 2 years
Started at Khorus right after they had chosen Ember
Went to Khorus partly because they were using Ember (Employers, take note)
Khorus chose Ember because it was well-liked amongst Rails devs
Transitioning from Rails to Ember
The transition was difficult because Ember (and especially Ember Data) were in flux, and acceptance testing was difficult
Many of those troubles have gone away, and acceptance testing is easier
The world doesn’t stop during a rewrite :-/
The transition took a year because there was also a redesign and several added features
3 devs + a few contractors, very lean for the size of the app they’re creating
Benefits of using Ember
Conventions
Private addons- pulling parts of main out to share between other apps
Public addons- we all know and love these
Khorus - http://www.khorus.com/
Helps their customers be the best-run companies on earth
Help set strategy, culture, talent management, etc.
This is a new software category
Strategy- setting quarterly goals, then getting weekly feedback from employees and then using that to adjust
Helps coordinate different goals between departments and levels, to share knowledge and predict (and mitigate) failure cascades
Takes into account human intuition at each level
Ember Data has been really helpful in working with all this data
They’re dogfooding it within Khorus, has been helpful even though they’re small
Helpful to be able to look at different team’s status, increases transparency and collaboration
They’re hiring!
Ember + Rails ideal
Looking for a range of experience, willing to provide some training
Small team, you’ll have a big impact
Email [email protected]
Sponsored by EmberScreencasts - https://www.emberscreencasts.com/