March 2017 Summaries

In this episode of JAMstack Radio, I speak with Quincy Larson, Founder of Free Code Camp and Berkeley Martinez, CTO of Free Code Camp. We discuss Free Code Camp's "self study together" approach that has grown their community to over 350,000 monthly active users. The founders explain why they chose JavaScript as the language to teach people how to program. An important part of their curriculum is the practical training campers gain by working with non-profits and contributing to open source communities.

Cloudflare is a service that speeds up and protects millions of websites and APIs by providing features like SSL, DNS load balancing, and DDoS protection. Cloudflare enables sites with custom domains to handle these tasks without needing a server-based web host. However, Netlify offers similar features as part of its platform, including SSL certificates, advanced CDN, load balancing techniques, and DDoS protection, making it a one-stop solution for hosting, security, and deployment. With Netlify's Domain Dashboard feature, users can also manage their DNS configurations easily. As the founder of OpenSauced, Brian Douglas emphasizes that Netlify already offers what Cloudflare provides, making it a viable alternative for sites not currently using the platform.

The author of the text introduces a grid system as the building blocks of their design, using multiples of 8 to define dimensions, padding, and margin of both block and inline elements. They also use the Golden Ratio (1.618) model for proportions and standard sizes for all elements when possible. This approach simplifies design work, making it easier to communicate and translate static mockups to code. The author shares their process of translating this grid to Sketch and using Nudge.it to change the value of the big nudge, allowing them to easily adjust the dimensions. By trusting the system and following the logic and structure, designers can create a consistent look and feel in their app.

The traditional CMS landscape has evolved over time, but many still struggle with maintaining large applications and complex interwoven layers of cache. Site generators offer a more interactive experience, but often require knowledge of Git and Continuous Deployment tools. Netlify CMS bridges this gap by providing an open-source React.js app that acts as a wrapper for the Git workflow, allowing collaborators to create and edit content without writing code or dealing with version control. The goal is to build a fully-featured and production-ready CMS that's easy to customize and use, while also encouraging community involvement and collaboration.

Smashing Magazine, a trusted platform for developers, partnered with Netlify to redesign their site and implement a JAMstack architecture. The goal was to provide a unified platform, freedom from limitations, and the most performant site possible. Netlify developed open-source tools, including APIs and a content management system (CMS), to meet Smashing's needs while showcasing the benefits of the JAMstack approach. The new site, built using Hugo, Algolia, and Gulp/Webpack, offers improved speed, performance, and user experience, solidifying Smashing Magazine as a pioneer in modern web development.

The introduction of the new User Interface at Netlify has made it easier to trigger a Manual Deploy, allowing users to deploy their projects directly from the Deploys page. To manually deploy to an existing site or create a new one, users can simply scroll to the bottom of the page and drag and drop their local project into the target box. This change aims to improve the user experience and streamline the deployment process for Netlify users.

Netlify is rolling out a new iteration of its user interface, designed to be more flexible and accommodate big transformations while minimizing friction. The current design was showing limitations as the company grew, and a complete redesign was deemed too resource-intensive. Instead, Netlify simplified its organizational structure, creating a new header with a "Hero Card" that provides quick access to common actions and information, allowing users to get in and out of the UI efficiently.

Netlify provides seamless integration with Git providers, allowing users to automate deployments for static sites without writing custom build scripts. This can be achieved by simply providing the build command to Netlify when connecting a repository, and triggers builds on push to staging, master, or secret-feature branches. As a result, users can take advantage of continuous integration (CI) features without the need for manual scripting, making it easier to deploy and share static sites with others. By using Netlify, users can avoid writing custom scripts and instead focus on other aspects of their project, such as improving their website's functionality or design.

Distributed system design is a complex task that involves many decisions, one of which is how systems will communicate. Communication can be achieved through point-to-point or message bus architectures. Point-to-point communication allows for direct interaction between services but silos data off from the rest of the system, hindering innovation and development pace. In contrast, message bus architectures provide more ubiquitous access to data, allowing consumers to determine how they consume it, promoting decoupling between producers and consumers. The primary benefit of a message bus architecture is that data is freely available, enabling rapid prototyping, simple services crosscutting, intuitive monitoring, and easier development. However, using a message bus also introduces operational costs and potential security concerns. Ultimately, the choice between point-to-point and message bus architectures depends on the specific needs of each system.