Stephen D Robinson, Ph.D.

Last night’s event was a great success. It was especially encouraging to meet so many software developers and representatives of the local community including Mayor John DeStefano of New Haven and the Vice President and Director of New Haven and State Affairs Bruce Alexander of Yale University. 

If you couldn’t make it but want to watch a video of a similar presentation please click here.

Here’s the full description of the last nights event …

The Economic Development Corporation of New Haven is launching the first of a series of informal business gatherings that will bring together companies and individuals involved in specific industry sectors to share information that will help foster an environment for the growth of these industries in New Haven.

Join the EDC staff, Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. and members of the growing “tech” community in and around New Haven to find out what’s happening in the world of programming and software development. Our guest speaker, Stephen Robinson, Ph.D, will discuss real-world production grade projects, comparing Ruby on Rails, CakePHP, Tapestry and other MVC frameworks.

TITLE:           Popular Web Application Frameworks Reviewed (October 6, 2008)
PLACE:        Economic Development Corporation of New Haven, 195 Church Street 14th floor, New Haven, CT 06510
EVENT:        5:45 – 7:30     (refreshments will be served)
                      5:45 – 6:15      networking
                      6:15 – 6:45      presentation
                      6:45 – 7:30      informal discussion and networking

Title : Know thy Enemy: Ruby on Rails for PHP Developers
Presented at : IBM 590 Madison Avenue, New York
Date : Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Talk Overview : Looking for a reality check on all that Ruby on Rails hype? What exactly is it and how does it stack up to PHP? When should it be used, when not, what should you tell your boss? If you’re fed up of re-reading the same flame bait blogs and want a cold headed detail rich understanding, this talk is for you. We’ll cover issues of performance, real world usage, interface capabilities, architecture, scaling, deployment issues and more

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“Money spent on computing technology delivers gains in worker productivity that are three to five times those of other investments, according to a study being published Tuesday. ” - news.com

Here’s the summary of the report …

“There have been surprisingly few attempts to catalogue what is known about the economic impact of information and communications technology (IT). In a new report, ITIF does just that, examining the impact of IT in five key areas: 1) productivity; 2) employment; 3) more efficient markets; 4) higher quality goods and services; and 5) innovation and new products and services. The report finds that the integration of IT into virtually all aspects of the economy and society is creating a digitally-enabled economy that is responsible for generating the lion’s share of economic growth and prosperity, both here and abroad, including in developing nations. Importantly, the “IT engine” does not appear likely to run out of gas anytime soon and should power robust growth for at least the next decade, provided that policy makers take the right steps. ” - Information Internet Technology Foundation

And here are a couple of interesting graphs …

Companies run on process. Employees follow procedures, gather information, perform tasks, report results, and conduct a myriad other activities that generate productivity and profit. Technology’s strength is to make these tasks even more efficient, and for common activities there exist affordable products. On an individual level, think of the productivity gains provided by Microsoft Office, web-mail, and desktop publishing software, to name a few.

Unfortunately the processes that drive a business’s true competitive advantage often take years to develop and are so unique that there’s no off-the-shelf or easily customizable solution. Frequently, employees are left to track, organize, and communicate using a mixture of paper forms, spreadsheets, and homegrown Access databases. It doesn’t take long before the complications of duplicate entries, lack of permissions control, and the difficulties of producing performance reports, hinder further efficiency. That’s where a custom business application can help boost productivity and a business’s bottom line.

To build a business application you must first understand the client’s business processes and then craft a web-based application to match those unique needs. Imagine workers performing, tracking, and reporting their tasks as easily as they might interact with any other modern online system. No more fiddly spreadsheets or separate databases, just a unified solution with unified capabilities centrally located and backed up at offsite facilities. Wouldn’t that be nice?