Ruby web apps and the Intuit Partner Platform

Editor's note: The following is a guest post by Zack Chandler who has been active in the Ruby on Rails and Intuit developer community for a number of years.

As recently as five years ago the majority of developers considered the Ruby programming language arcane and obscure. Then the Ruby on Rails web framework burst on the scene and seemly overnight became a must-consider choice when building web apps.

I began working with Ruby on Rails before the 1.0 release and have been amazed at the progress of the framework and growth of the community. Not long after that I began developing integrations between Ruby web apps and QuickBooks via the QuickBooks Web Connector and QuickBooks Online via the QBO API.

New to the QuickBooks ecosystem, I quickly learned there were additional benefits beyond simply adding the “QuickBooks integration” checkbox on a feature tour. Specifically the QuickBooks Marketplace quickly proved itself to be a valuable channel for lead-generation.

Fast-forward to 2010 and Ruby developers have even greater reason to be excited with Intuit’s current integration opportunities.

Ruby web apps apps targeting small to medium-sized businesses are launching daily. Humm… guess which accounting system most small to medium-sized businesses use (hint: rhymes with “fast cooks”)?

Meanwhile Intuit has re-imagined their entire developer offering and launched the ambitious Intuit Partner Platform. To a Ruby developer with no former experience with QuickBooks integration I would simply say that the most exciting parts of IPP are:

• Intuit Data Services – a cloud-based API for QuickBooks data
• Intuit Workplace App Center – an online portal where your web app can be marketed and sold to millions of Intuit customers

I recently did a deep-dive into IPP and came away thoroughly excited. I’ve posted a quickstart tutorial entitled Intuit Partner Platform for Ruby Web Applications on my Depixelate blog which will hopefully help other Rubyists get started with IPP.

The future is indeed bright for those Ruby developers wishing to both co-market and integrate with Intuit data through the cloud.