Test Or Catch Fire: Chris Bonser at Khorus

Real World Ember

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.

• 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
  • 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 [e-mail]
• Sponsored by EmberScreencasts