A couple of years back I was investigating collaborative web tools for one of our clients. At that time all were priced per user which was one obstacle against adoption. The other main problem was the amount of configuration required to get things up and running as near to our client’s requirements as possible. The bottom line is you would end up with an application that did 80% of what was required, didn’t behave as you’d like, and which cost too much money to run.

A year later, we revisited the requirement and trialed QuickBase internally. It did the job, but was still too complicated. QuickBase had the look and feel of a database application, which is not what clients want. What they want is something that models and reflects their real-life behaviour.

We’ve recently been discussing the problems with Content Management Systems. All of the ones we have looked at suffer from the same kinds of problems:

• Extensive configuration required for look and feel
• Inevitable customisation required for client-specific needs
• One or more modules or features lacking from a preferred choice
• Much of our time is spent learning the application rather than meeting our client’s needs

This lead us to the conclusion that the best way forward is a bespoke Content Management Solution. With Ruby on Rails, we believe we can do this now. But let’s go back to QuickBase:

QuickBase gives people a quick and easy way of creating custom databases, views and queries. Added to this, you get e-mail notifications. That’s pretty much it. And you have to pay for it. But you can do all of this in Ruby on Rails:

1. Create the required database structure in MySQL
2. Develop the controllers reflecting the relationships between tables
3. Generate and adapt the Scaffold for the views (and reports)
4. Add a Login and Authenticator Generator
5. Add Access Control List support if you need it
6. Use cron jobs and an ActionMailer for e-mail notifications

No doubt QuickBase has its target market, but when Ruby on Rails takes off and becomes a more generally known architecture amongst web application developers, what will happen to it and similar web application providers? The future for them has to lie in providing exemplary niche applications, such as Basecamp.