June 2019 Summaries

The text uses a fictional narrative to illustrate the challenges and realities of legacy software systems, highlighting the concept of "legacy" code as both a burden and a crucial backbone of business operations. It emphasizes the lack of ownership and maintenance of such systems, leading to issues when the original developers are no longer present or when organizational priorities shift, leaving critical software neglected. The text advocates for better ownership practices, such as assigning maintenance responsibilities to teams, fostering cross-codebase familiarity among developers, and designing software with diagnostics in mind. It underscores the importance of preserving and understanding these foundational systems, as they continue to play a vital role in delivering value and supporting business functions despite being overshadowed by newer technologies.

The final installment of a three-part series guides readers through deploying a Clojure web application using HashiCorp Terraform and CircleCI for seamless infrastructure management and deployment. The application, hosted on Docker containers alongside a PostgreSQL database, is deployed on AWS with zero downtime. The guide accommodates users with minimal Clojure experience and provides an option to fork the source code for convenience. Key prerequisites include Java JDK, Leiningen, Git, Docker, and accounts on CircleCI, GitHub, Docker Hub, and AWS. The infrastructure setup includes creating an AWS account and configuring IAM users and key pairs. The blog emphasizes the importance of using Terraform to build a production-like AWS infrastructure, including ECS tasks for the application and database, network load balancers, and auto-scaling groups. It also details how to integrate CircleCI for continuous deployment and manage variables and credentials for seamless operations. The post concludes with instructions for enhancing the application with a search feature and using CircleCI for automated deployment, while also advising on resource teardown to avoid unnecessary costs.

The text provides a detailed tutorial on setting up and deploying a Gatsby web application using Firebase Hosting and CircleCI for continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD). It introduces Firebase Hosting as a Google service for web app hosting with features like fast CDN delivery and rollbacks, and Gatsby as a framework for creating high-performance React-based apps with data from various sources. The tutorial guides users through installing necessary tools like Git, Node.js, and Firebase CLI, creating a new Gatsby site, and hosting it on Firebase by setting up a Firebase project and integrating the Firebase CLI. It then explains how to automate the deployment process using CircleCI, detailing the creation of a CircleCI config file to manage builds and deployments and the generation of a Firebase token for authentication. Throughout, the text emphasizes the ease of using Gatsby for front-end development and the benefits of automating deployment with CircleCI, noting that this method is applicable to other static site generators and frameworks beyond Gatsby.

Working remotely at CircleCI offers a blend of flexibility, support, and occasional challenges, as shared by various engineers within the company. The distributed team structure across multiple time zones allows for continuous project progress, with team members valuing the ability to manage their own schedules and the emphasis on asynchronous communication. Success in this environment hinges on regular communication, psychological safety, and a culture of kindness, supported by practices like documenting processes and team collaboration in shared channels. New remote employees are advised to be proactive in communication, define clear work-life boundaries, and engage in social interactions with colleagues. CircleCI emphasizes the importance of asynchronous communication, recording meetings, and visible working hours to enhance team effectiveness, advocating for patience and continuous experimentation to refine distributed team dynamics.