March 2020 Summaries

LaunchDarkly introduces a new weekly Twitter chat called ToggleTalk. The chat will cover topics such as feature flags, CI/CD, and modern development practices. Toggle is the mascot of LaunchDarkly's community and embodies values like curiosity, helpfulness, empathy, inclusivity, humor, positivity, balance, and open-mindedness. The chat will take place on Wednesdays at two different times to accommodate various time zones. Participants can share their questions and thoughts using the hashtag #ToggleTalk, and a blog post with highlights from each week's discussion will be posted on Fridays.

LaunchDarkly has adapted its remote onboarding process during the pandemic to ensure new hires feel welcomed and supported. The company's HR team creates a Clubhouse ticket assigning tasks for system access, meetings, and swag delivery. A "buddy" from another team is assigned as a resource for the new hire. To recreate the in-person onboarding experience virtually, extra care is taken with logistics, such as detailed office supply policies and ensuring adequate support from buddies. Managers play a crucial role in making new hires feel connected by introducing them to colleagues, helping with introductions, and assigning small projects for early wins. The company has learned valuable lessons during this time and aims to improve its internal systems to create an inclusive experience for remote employees.

LaunchDarkly is taking steps to ensure the safety of its employees and customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, including shifting all operations to be fully remote and postponing in-person customer and community activities. The company has a disaster recovery plan and business continuity strategy in place to maintain service reliability. They are also providing regular updates on their blog and via email notifications. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, LaunchDarkly remains committed to growing its platform and team while prioritizing the health and safety of its community.

LaunchDarkly has introduced an integration with SignalFx, allowing users to send feature flag events, project updates, and team member changes to the monitoring platform. This enables customers to track these events alongside other metrics and create dashboards that include this data. To set up the integration, read the documentation and visit the in-app integrations page. The integration is available for all LaunchDarkly users, with additional options available upon request. For those without a LaunchDarkly account, contact sales or start a free trial.

LaunchDarkly introduces Configurable Flag Defaults, allowing users to choose their preferred default behavior for feature flags when turned ON or OFF. This provides more control and precision in managing user experiences with feature flagging. Users can now select the default variation rules that match their needs, tailoring flags to fit any preferred release pattern. Existing flags will display their default rules on the Variations tab for each flag.

The article discusses the concept of "move fast and break things" popularized by Mark Zuckerberg, which has become a motto for many development teams aiming to release more and ship faster. However, moving too fast without proper processes in place can lead to high consequences such as longer incident resolution times, loss of customer confidence, employee burnout, and high turnover rates. The Accelerate: State of DevOps Report shows that elite teams not only move faster but also have a lower likelihood of failure and faster recovery from incidents. To effectively move fast, companies need psychological safety and smart investments in tooling. Employees should feel empowered to speak up about concerns and identify gaps in processes without fear of blame. Additionally, the right tools and processes such as observability and monitoring, incident management, feature management, targeted rollouts, and experiments can help deliver more value faster without sacrificing quality or employee health.

The Trajectory Conference 2020 has been postponed due to concerns over COVID-19 safety precautions. The decision was made after internal discussions and prioritizing the wellbeing of attendees and employees. The event will now take place on August 26th-27th at the same venue, with the same content. Despite the postponement, the organizers are looking forward to reaching a broader audience online and have planned various engagements for their virtual community. They encourage everyone to prioritize health and safety during this challenging time.

LaunchDarkly has released its SDK for the Haskell programming language, marking their first support for a purely functional language. This allows feature flags to be used in various contexts such as backend REST APIs, internal applications, R&D projects, and commercial applications. The Haskell SDK can be integrated with popular frameworks like servant and yesod. Users can access LaunchDarkly's full suite of feature management tools, including progressive rollouts and experimentation, for a consistent developer experience across their entire stack and app suite. Toggling a feature flag results in instantaneous behavioral changes across all platforms within milliseconds. The reference guide provides information on getting started with the SDK, and support is available at [email protected].

LaunchDarkly has released a new Dynatrace integration, allowing users to send event data from LaunchDarkly to Dynatrace for use in performance charts and operational health calculations. To set up the integration, configure it on the LaunchDarkly platform and visit the in-app integrations page to manage policies. This feature is available to all LaunchDarkly customers. For additional integration requests or account setup, contact [email protected] or start a free trial.

LaunchDarkly has released an integration with Splunk, allowing users to configure their Splunk dashboard to display changes in feature flag events, projects, and team members. This integration enables the creation of reports, charts, alerts, and dashboards using these events. To get started, read the documentation and visit the in-app integrations page for configuration or policy editing. The integration is available to all LaunchDarkly customers. For additional integration requests, contact the company directly. New users can reach out to [email protected] or start a free trial.

Trajectory, a software conference, is returning for its second year with exciting content and activities. The event will feature industry leaders discussing better development and release practices, workshops at Space Camp, a space-themed block party, and more. Attendees can learn from experts like Liz Fong-Jones, Emily Freeman, Ana Margarita Medina, and James Governor. Last year's Trajectory received valuable feedback that has been incorporated into this year's event, including hands-on labs and training sessions. The conference will take place in Oakland at the new Bloc15 venue, with additional activities happening nearby.