Reimbursement Calculation Script

Overview

This Ruby script calculates the reimbursement amounts for a series of projects based on specified rules. Each project has a designated city cost type (high or low) and defined start and end dates.

Thought Process and Approach

Requirement Analysis: Thorough review of project requirements.
Data Structure Design: Consideration of appropriate structures for project sets and rates.
Rule Examination: Manual exploration of rules to identify edge cases.
Client Clarifications: Sought clarifications on edge cases to refine understanding.
Algorithm Development: Brainstormed and strategized various algorithmic approaches.
Iterative Development: Started with simple implementation of some of the rules, gradually encompassing all rules.
Code Refinement: Refactored for optimization and readability.

Throughout the development process, I utilized ChatGPT as a collaborative tool. It served as a sounding board for ideas, helped troubleshoot errors, provided alternative problem-solving approaches, and offered refactoring advice. Importantly, I focused on understanding and internalizing any generated code rather than directly copying it, ensuring a general comprehension of its functionality and logic.

Rules

Travel Days: The first and last day of each project or a chronologically ordered set of projects are considered travel days.
Full Days: Any day in the middle of a project or a set of projects.
Gaps: Days on either side of a gap between projects are travel days.
Overlaps: Overlapping days in projects are counted as full days. (assumption made here that this should ALWAYS be the case no matter if the day would have been a travel day otherwise)
City Costs: Differentiates between high cost and low cost cities for reimbursement rates.
Unique Counting: A day is only counted once, even if it appears in multiple projects.
Rate Selection: For overlapping projects in different cities, the higher rate is used.

Reimbursement Rates

Low Cost City: Travel Day - $45/day, Full Day - $75/day
High Cost City: Travel Day - $55/day, Full Day - $85/day

Project Files

reimburse.rb: Main script for reimbursement calculation.
test_reimburse.rb: Test suite for the script.
test_project_sets.yml: YAML file containing test project sets.
test_reimbursement_rates.yml: YAML file with reimbursement rates.

Prerequisites

Ensure Ruby is installed on your system. If not, download and install it from Ruby's official site.

Setup and Execution

git clone https://github.com/ca-collins/reimburse_me.git

cd reimburse_me

ruby test_reimburse.rb

Feel free to update the test_project_sets.yml and/or test_reimbursement_rates.yml as well as the expected values in test_reimburse.rb to test other scenarios.