JRuby on Rails Fighting Infectious Disease

A new JRuby on Rails venture was just publicly announced. It's a collaboration between Collaborative Software Initiative and the State of Utah:

Portland, Ore., May 19, 2008 - Collaborative Software Initiative (CSI), the company that brings like-minded organizations together to work on collaborative software at a fraction of the cost, today announced the release of the first open source, web-based infectious disease reporting and management system.

The application is basically a system for reporting, investigating, and managing outbreaks of communicable disease. So if some kid at a local school contracts bacterial meningitis, this is the sort of system that would record the event and track related cases or contacts with that kid. Seems like a great application for JRuby on Rails, and a potential to see wide use.

Technical details are still a little sparse on the announcement and on the project site, but it's JRuby on Rails based, and "friend of JRuby" Mike Herrick is quoted in the article saying that they "look forward to rolling this out and talking to other states about how to implement it and improve the health and safety of their citizens."

Mike has promised me more information, but from our discussions with him he's very happy using JRuby on Rails. I think he's going to be at RailsConf next week, so if you're interested in talking to him you might drop an email his way.

It seems like JRuby is picking up speed.