TickSpot - By the Mole Hill
I am never ceased to be amazed by my friend Tom Rossi who runs a company called The Mole Hill out of Jacksonville, Florida.
Honestly, when he told me that he was switching to the Ruby on Rails development platform I knew he had lost it.
He proved me wrong 100 times over.
Their first application called 'TickSpot' has taken off. Tick is a simple time tracking application that helps you hit your budgets. It has received recognition from CNET and is already running over 2000 users in its current beta state. It is a thoroughly impressive application that makes use of some extremely agile technologies.
Not only is Tick an application but I think it will soon become a leader of a new development philosophy. Check out some of these posts at their blog:
How Should We Think About Time in the Service Industry
Beginner's Guide: Model - View - Controller Architecture
Beginner's Guide: Setting Up Ruby on Windows
I, for one, believe The Mole Hill is going to create a new software paradigm for us developers because of the innovative ideas of its owners. Sooner or later it is very possible for Enterprise Applications to be developed within Ruby (especially as computers become faster and can handle larger footprints).
As .NET Developers it is critical we move outside of our application domains as to not hinder our own innovation. People want new ideas and desire to participate in products such as Tick because ... well ... it's just fun.