A Rating Engine That Outgrew Its First Design

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The first version could calculate the prices. That wasn’t the same as having a good representation of the price book, or an affordable way to evaluate it. Those distinctions drove most of the interesting work on this project—well before changing languages became the next decision.

I built a private logistics rating engine which could express different tariffs without adding a new application branch for every combination. It stayed private rather than becoming a commercial product. It was still one of the most satisfying systems I’ve worked on: the complexity largely belonged to the problem itself. I wasn’t first trying to explain years of unrelated exceptions which had somehow become permanent business rules.

Case Studies on Brian Faust

A Rating Engine That Outgrew Its First Design