Buildbox - Lessons Learned

In this presentation, I share my experiences developing Buildbox, a semi-hosted continuous integration service. I also discuss how the product works, how I made it and some of the challenges I faced along the way.

Transcript

1. Lessons learned building a tool for developers.
   

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12. Mario Visic
    Señor Developer
    

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13. Desktoppr.co
    

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17. “Continuous Integration is a software
    development practice where members of a
    team integrate their work frequently,
    usually each person integrates at least
    daily - leading to multiple integrations
    per day. Each integration is verified by an
    automated build (including test) to detect
    integration errors as quickly as possible.”
    - Martin Fowler (the smartest guy alive)
    

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20. Note: Travis is amazing and I love them. You should use them.
    

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27. Ugly
    Java? Lolwut?
    Too hard to setup
    GitHub Pull Requests Status
    

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28. Ugly
    Java? Lolwut?
    Too hard to setup
    GitHub Pull Requests Status
    

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31. A semi-hosted continuous integration service
    

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32. github.com buildbox.io
    buildbox-agent
    webhook
    commit status
    polling
    build output
    

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34. Not Ugly
    No Java
    Easy to setup!
    GitHub Pull Request Status!
    Can do what ever I want on

    the server
    Safe and secure production

    deploys
    

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36. Alright listen up.
    

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37. Challenges
    Rendering terminal output!
    The agent is a memory hog!
    Having to do all the things
    

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38. Do as little work as possible
    All the gems (73 in Buildbox)!
    CSS framework (Twitter Bootstrap)!
    Deploy onto Heroku/Ninefold!
    

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39. Keep your vision strong
    Don’t forget the goals!
    Don’t go off on tangents!
    Why are you doing this again?!
    Build what you want to exist
    

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40. Keep the tech stack simple
    Don’t do SOA!
    Don’t scale to your 1 customer!
    Keep the code ghetto!
    Use what you know
    

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41. Avoid rewrites
    Ignore all the new shiny things!
    Just slows you down!
    Founder code is encouraged
    

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42. Don’t write invoicing stuff
    Invoices are a must for B2B!
    Generally receipts don’t cut it!
    It’s such a buzz kill!
    chargebee.com + Pin Payments
    

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43. Launch on the first day
    After your 10th commit, be in production!
    Tease out any issues!
    Get people looking at it!
    Users can come later!
    Continuous Delivery
    

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44. Regrets
    Didn’t blog enough!
    Not enough drip marketing!
    Didn’t make a video on public launch!
    Took stuff personally
    

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45. Future
    Hosted Agents (but still secure)!
    Pipelines!
    Rewrite agent in Golang!
    Better IA
    

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46. That’s it. I have stickers.
    

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