March 2020 Summaries

Luke Haas is the creator of Scrollify, a tool that allows developers to customize scrolling experiences on their websites. He started developing Scrollify in 2014 after not finding any existing libraries that met his needs for smooth and non-intrusive scrolling behavior. Contributors to Scrollify are typically enthusiastic users who find bugs or have ideas for new features. Luke is strict about maintaining the quality of Scrollify, ensuring it works well on a broad set of browsers and devices. He believes in the importance of open source contributions within and outside organizations.

The company has transitioned all its offices in Mumbai, San Francisco, and Dublin to work from home since March 16, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the shift, they have ensured that their services remain unaffected with over 2 million tests executed daily on a platform built with multiple redundancies. The company has also taken preventive measures such as stopping business travel and restricting personal travel. They are committed to providing a world-class experience during these challenging times and encourage spreading the word about their sponsored subscriptions for students, teachers, open source projects, and non-profits who may need support.

Jamie Rees, creator of Ombi, a tool that allows users to manage requests and content on Plex, found contributors by starting the project as a learning experience. He encourages newcomers to open source contributions to try firsttimersonly.com or contact project maintainers for help. Rees spends around 10 hours per week on Ombi, with fluctuating amounts of time depending on his personal life and job demands. The users and community built upon the application keep him motivated, despite occasional burnout. To ensure quality in Ombi, he relies on unit tests and a large group of users who run builds and report issues. Rees uses Reddit, dev.to, Twitter, and various blogs to network and stay updated with the latest trends in the .net world. In his free time, he enjoys playing video games.

BrowserStack has re-architected its key management system for their Rails application using HashiCorp Vault and Amazon DynamoDB as backend storage. Previously, keys were stored in an AWS CodeCommit repository, which was not secure or efficient. The new architecture allows teams to add their keys to a central location, change them directly, and rotate them without involving other teams. This has significantly reduced the time spent on key rotation activities from 30-35 man-hours to ~12 hours for the Rails app alone. Future plans include removing the dependency of a single YAML file containing all keys, moving other systems to Vault, and building automated systems for organization-wide key rotations every 90 days.

Bruno Orlandi, a frontend developer from Sao Paolo, created the 'Star Wars Intro Creator', a nostalgic project that allows users to type any text and see it roll across the screen like Star Wars opening credits. The website received 4 million visitors and 50,000 accesses per month. Encouraged by its success, Orlandi launched intro creators for Westworld, Stranger Things, and Game of Thrones. He advises developers to just start contributing to open source projects and learn from the experience.