November 2015 Summaries

During their first offsite in Austin, TX, the ReadMe team attended the API Strategy and Practice event, immersing themselves in the local culture by enjoying Texas barbecue and exploring iconic spots like Voodoo Donuts. They worked in various aesthetically pleasing coffee shops, which resonated with their passion for design, and drew inspiration from talks given by industry experts, including a presentation by their own Greg on developer documentation. Inspired by these interactions, they brainstormed future developments for ReadMe, utilizing sticky notes to map out new features and reflect on their company culture and mission. They were particularly impressed by Austin's vibrant community spirit and curated experiences, which they aim to emulate in creating a more community-friendly and engaging platform. Additionally, they noted the growing popularity of Swagger in API development, anticipating its increased integration in their future projects.

ReadMe is a platform that reimagines API documentation by emphasizing community engagement and providing a developer-friendly interface, hosting over 15,000 projects and serving more than 800,000 developers. It offers a subdomain-based developer hub, combining documentation, support, and API dashboards, and is used by notable clients such as Apache, Box, Yammer, and Mozilla. The platform is built entirely on JavaScript, with Node.js as the backend framework, Express for the server, AngularJS for the frontend, and MongoDB as the database, although there are reservations about MongoDB's fit with JavaScript/JSON. The use of Redis for caching enhances performance, and while the developer appreciates the MEAN stack, there is a cautious concern about becoming too comfortable with it, potentially hindering exploration of new technologies. The platform's design allows for rapid feature development and streamlined code, with AngularJS enabling efficient data binding and concise code management.

In the second installment of a three-part series about the tools used to operate ReadMe, the focus shifts to the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that supports the platform. Initially hosted on AWS, ReadMe transitioned to Heroku just before launch due to ease of use, although a future change is possible. The database is managed by Compose.io, formerly MongoHQ, which integrates Mongo, Redis, and Elasticsearch seamlessly, offering a user-friendly setup and reliable data syncing. This choice has proven efficient, saving significant time and effort. Other tools include CloudFlare for caching, Mailgun for email distribution, GitHub for code hosting, Slack for team communication, and Heap for dashboard analytics, which provides enhanced tracking capabilities compared to Google Analytics.