Boring down the heirarchy in Rails

Wasn't aware that the following is possible:

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :projects
end

class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :account
has_many :milestones
end

class Milestone < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :project
end
Account.find(:first).projects.first.milestones

This gets all the milestones of the first project that belongs to the first
account.

from Rails Digest, Vol 13, Issue 424 Message 8

Why bother?

Because work is driving me up the wall. I'm fed up of being constantly told what to do without making any decisions myself. And that won't change here. That's not the company's fault: it's an architectural practise and I'm neither an architect nor am I particularly interested in learning anymore in this field. I used to enjoy working here but for all the wrong reasons. I could get away with doing what I wanted, I liked doing all the 3d stuff, but I realise now that this is was in the main fruitless and I feel like I have wasted 5 precious years. Then again, maybe I needed the time to realise that I need to grow up.

I'm ready now. I want to be a healthy tree that bears good fruit. I've got this idea and I think it's a good one. Lord, help me see it through to completion. Help me be self-employed by the summer.

Importing planlists into Excel

Excel's web query function enables the tables in planlist to be imported in pure text. If the images in the th's have an 'alt' tag then the 'alt' text is imported. This procedure is simply enough to negate the need for me providing a pure text view for user's to save locally and then open in Excel: I can just document this procedure under help.

It's a good idea!

A bit of motivation for when the going gets tough.

It's a good idea because:

• no files are sent
  
• each company has incoming and outgoing boxes to keep track of dispatches
  
• keeping an overview of plans for even relatively small projects (zingst) is complicated enough
  
• 'don't search - tag' encourages a structured approach to organising plans