Working With Rails

Oakley is known across the world for its high-end sunglasses and ski goggles.

Over the last few months, Oakley have been switching their main public facing site from PHP to Rails. It serves over a million unique visitors a month. In this interview we talk to Ken Loh, Director of Web Operations at Oakley. Find out why we had made the decision to move to Rails, the challenges he and his team faced, the benefits it has brought, and more.

Adoption

Q: What made you choose Rails for your development platform?

We were currently running PHP but decided to go with Rails since it had an established, sensible framework. We are large proponents of web standards, accessibility, clean markup and semantics, all of which seem to be very much in line with the concepts that drive Rails. We wanted a framework that was structured enough that had “proper” ways of doing things so everyone on the team could adhere to some standard, yet flexible enough to be able to customize to suit our needs. There were other PHP frameworks that we considered for a brief moment, but ultimately felt they were just “me too” versions of Rails. I also liked the fact that we could have our designers and frontend developers stay in specific directories that were relevant to them (views, layouts, stylesheets, etc) while leaving the major functional components of the site to the backend developers. Our company thrives on innovation and the ability to move fast so we needed a platform that could accommodate rapid development with a solid foundational structure underneath.

Q: How easy was it to get Rails accepted by upper management?

Very easy. They pretty much left the choice up to me (great management), and I let the developers, whom I trust implicitly, drive the recommendation. The developers who brought Rails to the table (Paul Haddad and Mark McDonald) have tons of experience in several programming languages and they had high enthusiasm for the platform, stating it was one of the best they had ever used, so it made it an easy decision for me.

Team

Q: How did you recruit your team?

Currently have 6 developers. 3 backend, 3 frontend. Some of the players were already on the team I inherited (lucky me), and others we got through extensive, exhaustive interviews. Can’t really cite a single source that provided a slew of good candidates. Had to really dig for them. Wish I knew about this site earlier.

The rest of the team is comprised of web designers, graphic artists, content specialists, producer, sys admin, QA analyst, a large telesales team, and of course a few managers and coordinator to keep things running smoothly.

Q: How easy was it to find the right people?

Extremely difficult. Still have an open head I can’t seem to fill. Help!!

Q: What is their background?

Mixture of talent that includes PHP, Perl, Java, Javascript, OO and obviously Ruby on Rails. Mostly Open Source guys who are fans of Apple, Linux, and Apache. On the frontend side, we emphasize strict XHTML and CSS expertise.

Q: Do you all work in the same location?

Mostly all at the same location, but one works remotely from Dallas (we are in California). We utilize Skype often to stay in communication.

Q: What development practices do you use?

We utilize both Agile and Pair programming practices, but probably not in the most traditional sense. We’re fairly casual about the way we work.

Application

Q: Are you porting an existing application or starting from scratch?

Both. We launched a new site in March this year where we re-built the eCommerce portion and some key marketing portions in Rails. We are still running a legacy PHP content management system for some areas of the product catalog and shopping cart, but we’re in the process of changing that out (and improving functionality at the same time). The new site also has some soon-to-be-obsolete sections (Sports and Community) which we are re-engineering from the ground up in Rails. Prior to our launch we did not have adequate staff to take on the entire project ourselves so we worked with a third party to help create those sections. All new development since March has been in-house and in Rails. We hope to replace all of the Java/Tomcat bits with our new Rails applications by the end of this year.

Q: What type of functionality does the web site provide?

4 major sections.

PRODUCTS – This one is obvious, but we want to have the best shopping experience possible, so we’re constantly trying to reinvent ourselves.

INNOVATION – Demonstrates why our products are superior to the competition and teaches our customer about the technology and inspiration that drive our product design.

SPORTS – Showcase the world-class athletes we sponsor and provide multimedia. We’re currently re-working this section with some new ideas that should blow some people away.

COMMUNITY – Currently not a community site in the truest sense of the word since it’s mostly “push” content, but this is another area we are currently re-working to better showcase our brand, celebrate our loyalists, and allow customer participation. Should be launching in the near future.

Q: What sort of traffic do you anticipate?

We get about a million unique visitors a month. Traffic has gone up since our redesign (launched March 07) and and expect it to continue to grow as we add more features to the site.

Q: Tell us a bit about the technical setup

Rails 1.1.6, mongrel, mysql, plist, RedCloth, Apache 2.2, RedHat 4, svn.

1 DB Server, 4 WebServers, 1 Hardware load balancer, 8 instances of mongrel/machine.

Q: What have been the main challenges along the way?

Migrating PHP developers over to Rails. Some took to it much faster than others, but others struggled with learning a new language. I’m desperately trying to find time to learn it myself, but 1) time is hard to come by for me and 2) my background is on the creative side of things so some of the programming concepts are a little over my head. All of the developers and some designers have done a great job of getting up to speed fast.

Q: How long has it taken to develop?

Initial launch took roughly 6 months (wasn’t a full conversion...just parts of the site) and we’ve been working on additions and enhancements for the past 7. I don’t think we’ll ever be “done.”

Q: What has been the best thing about using Rails?

Solid framework. Simplicity in centralizing / re-using code. Quick development and deployment. Plus, the developers just love working with it.

Q: Any chance of some Oakley merchandise for the next Hackfest Winners?

How about I send you a new OROKR PRO. It’s our latest electronics product we just released a few weeks ago. Comes in black or white...black is typically our most popular color, but you can choose what you think would be best.

Q: Closing Words

As mentioned previously, we’re currently working on some very exciting stuff that I can’t wait to launch, particularly in Sports and Community. But after that, we’ve got other plans in the works as well that will not only expand the functionality of those sections, but other areas of the site as well. Even though we just launched the site in March, it has been and will continue to be in a constant state of evolution, so I think it should be one that will be interesting to keep an eye on. We’re just getting started.

Editors Note: Oakley currently have a vacancy for a back-end web developer to come join the team. See the job ad for further details