November 2016 Summaries

Damian Brady, Solution Architect at Octopus Deploy, shares his insights on feature flagging. He believes feature flags are most useful for testing features with real data and ensuring they work as expected before full release. However, he advises against using them for small changes or major architectural alterations. Brady emphasizes the importance of testing feature flags "on" and "off" to avoid potential issues such as data corruption. He also highlights how feature flagging can benefit continuous delivery and deployment by allowing safe rollouts of new features in production. As DevOps becomes more popular, Brady expects increased adoption of feature flags and the development of more tools and frameworks to support best practices in this area.

LaunchDarkly has introduced multi-factor authentication (MFA) to enhance customer security. MFA requires users to provide a verification passcode in addition to their account password, adding an extra layer of protection against unauthorized access. Administrators can mandate new team members to enable MFA during onboarding and monitor existing team members' MFA status. LaunchDarkly encourages all users to enable MFA for their accounts and suggests administrators enforce it for the entire team.

In today's podcast, Edith and Paul discuss productivity and personal discipline in software development. They talk about how some people are starters while others are finishers, and how a combination of both can lead to more productive teams. They also touch on the concept of 10x developers and how their productivity can sometimes be destructive if not managed properly. The conversation then shifts towards the importance of having a clear vision and roadmap for projects, even in open-source environments where code contributions are often valued over strategic direction.

Feature flags allow for granular, real-time control over feature releases, mitigating risks associated with full launches. By implementing a feature flagged soft launch, teams can incrementally roll out features to users and adjust the release percentage based on performance. This approach enables testing in production environments, handling uncertainties related to user experience, load capacity, support costs, browser compatibility, edge cases, and customer satisfaction. Feature flags also allow for easy control of feature releases without redeployment.

LaunchDarkly introduces a bulk user targeting feature that enables users to add, remove, or replace entire user populations by entering lists of user keys or emails. This new feature allows for pasting CSV lists containing thousands of user keys or e-mails, creating user segments locally and adding them to variations, and looking up multiple users at once. The bulk targeting modal can be triggered from the Bulk Edit button or by using Ctrl-V to paste a list of users directly into the Add Users field.

In this episode, Edith and Paul discuss the challenges of scaling a startup from its early stages to a more mature company. They touch on various aspects such as product management, technical debt, validation, outsourcing, and hiring VPs. They also share their experiences with different approaches and emphasize the importance of learning from mistakes and adapting to new situations.

LaunchDarkly has released its Android SDK (beta) for feature flag management. The SDK supports boolean and multivariate feature flags, allowing users to control features or configurations in their release. It also ensures that the latest stored flag rules are served even if the app is backgrounded or used by multiple users on a single device. Key features include easy user construction, support for switching between different user contexts, real-time management of flag updates, and offline mode functionality. LaunchDarkly encourages feedback and questions at [email protected].