Solution for intercom take home assignment. A program to read a full list of customers and output
the names and user ids of matching customers (within 100km), sorted by User ID (ascending).
You'll first want to install ruby version 2.6.3. I recommend using rbenv
Once installed, navigate to the root directory of the repository and enter bundle install in the terminal.
To execute the code with a customer list, execute the following snippet in terminal while at the root directory of the repository.
rake run[customer_list_directory]
Note: customer_list_directory would be the path to your customer list (i.e. /user/lucas/customer_list.txt)
To run the tests, execute the following snippet in terminal while at the root directory of the repository:
rake test
I decided to use a gem that implements the Haversine formula to calculate the great-circle distance because of the ubiquity of the formula. I felt it would be unnecessary to write out new code executing the Haversine formula when its simplicity does not allow for much technical variation.
I spent a good amount of time weighing the consequences of introducing an external gem to the "production" code. By locking in the version, I avoid any unexpected changes to the gem's functionality. I also read over the gem's source code to verify the effectiveness of the code.