Spot on. (Been there done that, saving your excellent comment for future "let's rewrite this" situations.) Also summarised well here: http://www.joelonsoftwar

Spot on. (Been there done that, saving your excellent comment for future "let's rewrite this" situations.) Also summarised well here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html I'd only add: - nitpicking, but with Ruby on Rails, you'd probably use ActiveRecords (the ORM) to manage the data; by not enforcing constraints in the database itself, you'll get a tiny bit of orphaned data. Fine for an e-commerce website where customer service can send a voucher; sucks for the few students whose life is affected by your non-provably-correct solution. - most non-technical users (most of the teachers I know included) confuse good and pretty UI. "Bad" legacy system usually means "not flat design/doesn't look like my iPad". This usually pairs with the idea that "it would just be a simple app, we can get it done for a grand".