Todd Kaufman
Appearances
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The best, worst codebase (Interview)
We did not pay Eileen for that quote, to be clear, but we do very much appreciate her sharing it. Yeah, we had the great fortune to work with Eileen and Aaron Patterson on the upgrade of GitHub's Ruby Rails framework. And that's a relatively complex problem. It's a very large system. There's a lot of engineers actively working on it at the same time that we were performing that upgrade.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The best, worst codebase (Interview)
Being able to collaborate with them, achieve the outcome of getting them upgraded to the latest and greatest Ruby on Rails that has all of the security patches and everything that you would expect of the more modern versions of the framework, while still not holding their business back from delivering features, we felt was a pretty significant accomplishment.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The best, worst codebase (Interview)
And it's great to work with someone like Eileen and Aaron Because we obviously learned a lot. We were able to collaborate effectively with them. But to hear that they were delighted by the outcome as well is very humbling for sure.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The best, worst codebase (Interview)
Yeah, I think we had between two and four people at any phase of the engagement. So we tend to run with relatively small teams. We do believe smaller teams tend to be more efficient and more productive. So wherever possible, we try to get by with as few people as we can. With this project, we were working directly with members from GitHub as well.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The best, worst codebase (Interview)
So there were full-time staff on GitHub who were collaborating with us day in, day out on the project. This was a fairly clear set of expectations. We wanted to get to Rails, I believe, 5.2 at the time and Ruby 2.5. Don't hold me to those numbers, but we had clear expectations at the outset.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The best, worst codebase (Interview)
So from there, it was just a matter of figuring out the process that we were going to pursue to get these upgrades done without having a sizable impact on their team. A lot of the consultants on the project had some experience doing Rails upgrades, maybe not at that scale at that point.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The best, worst codebase (Interview)
But it was really exciting because we were able to kind of develop a process that we think is very consistent in allowing Rails upgrades to be done without like providing a lot of risk to the client. So there's not a fear that, hey, we've missed something or, you know, this thing's going to fall over under scale.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The best, worst codebase (Interview)
We do it very incrementally so that the team can, like I said, keep working on feature delivery without being impacted. but also so that we are very certain that we've covered all the bases and really got the system to a state where it's functionally equivalent to the last version, just on a newer version of Rails and Ruby.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Building customizable ergonomic keyboards (Interview)
End quote. We did not pay Eileen for that quote, to be clear, but we do very much appreciate her sharing it. Yeah, we had the great fortune to work with Eileen and Aaron Patterson on the upgrade of GitHub's Ruby Rails framework. And that's a relatively complex problem. It's a very large system. There's a lot of engineers actively working on it.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Building customizable ergonomic keyboards (Interview)
at the same time that we were performing that upgrade so being able to collaborate with them achieve the outcome of getting them upgraded to the latest and greatest ruby on rails that has all of the security patches and everything that you would expect of the more modern versions of the framework while still like not holding their business back from delivering features we felt was a pretty significant accomplishment and it's great to you know work with someone like eileen and aaron um
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Building customizable ergonomic keyboards (Interview)
Because we obviously learned a lot. We were able to collaborate effectively with them. But to hear that they were delighted by the outcome as well is very humbling for sure.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Building customizable ergonomic keyboards (Interview)
Yeah, I think we had between two and four people at any phase of the engagement. So we tend to run with relatively small teams. We do believe smaller teams tend to be more efficient and more productive. So wherever possible, we try to get by with as few people as we can. With this project, we were working directly with members from GitHub as well.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Building customizable ergonomic keyboards (Interview)
So there were full-time staff on GitHub who were collaborating with us day in, day out on the project. This was a fairly clear set of expectations. We wanted to get to Rails, I believe 5.2 at the time and Ruby like 2.5. Don't hold me to those numbers, but we had clear expectations at the outset.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Building customizable ergonomic keyboards (Interview)
So from there, it was just a matter of figuring out the process that we were going to pursue to get these upgrades done without having a sizable impact on their team. A lot of the consultants on the project had some experience doing Rails upgrades, maybe not at that scale at that point.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Building customizable ergonomic keyboards (Interview)
But it was really exciting because we were able to kind of develop a process that we think is very consistent in allowing Rails upgrades to be done without like providing a lot of risk to the client. So there's not a fear that, hey, we've missed something or, you know, this thing's going to fall over under scale.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Building customizable ergonomic keyboards (Interview)
We do it very incrementally so that the team can, like I said, keep working on feature delivery without being impacted. but also so that we are very certain that we've covered all the bases and really got the system to a state where it's functionally equivalent to the last version, just on a newer version of Rails and Ruby.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The great escape room (Friends)
That's a bold statement. Yes, we often are brought in to help clients by adding capacity to their teams or maybe solving a technical problem that they were, you know, didn't have the experience to solve. But we feel like we want to set up our clients for future success and the computers just do what we tell them. So, well, at least for now.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The great escape room (Friends)
We try to work with our client teams to make sure that they're in a great state, that they have clarity and expectations, healthy development practices, lean processes that allow them to really deliver value into production really quickly. So we started a lot of our engagements by just adding capacity or technical know-how.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The great escape room (Friends)
We end a lot of our engagements by really setting up client teams for success. Very cool, Todd. I love it.