October 2015 Summaries

In a developer interview series, a team leader from the Portuguese company RUPEAL discusses their workflow and experiences with Semaphore in developing their products, InvoiceXpress and ClanHR. The team employs a comprehensive workflow involving product owners conducting market research, designers creating interactive mockups, and developers implementing features using Test-Driven Development (TDD) with a focus on fast feedback cycles. By leveraging tools like GitHub for code management and Semaphore for continuous integration and deployment, RUPEAL has optimized its development process, drastically reducing test suite run times from 40 minutes to 15 minutes through parallel execution. This efficiency enables rapid staging and deployment, allowing for quick feature refinement and delivery. The team highlights Semaphore's configurability, ease of use, and supportive customer service as key factors contributing to their agile development practices, underscoring its role as an invaluable business partner.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is a versatile component of AWS that facilitates the storage and retrieval of any type of data via an API and a web interface, with capabilities extending to hosting static websites. Semaphore has introduced an integration that simplifies the automatic building and deployment of static websites to S3 from Git repositories, promoting ease of use similar to its previous integration with AWS Elastic Beanstalk. This integration allows users to manage S3 buckets, execute custom site building commands, and maintain deployment history without needing to navigate the S3 web interface. Semaphore offers both automatic and manual deployment options, enhancing continuous deployment workflows for teams. For those unfamiliar with static website engines, staticgen.com is recommended as a resource, and further guidance is available in the related documentation. The new integration aims to streamline the process of deploying to S3, encouraging improved workflow efficiency.

Josh Adams discusses setting up Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) for a Phoenix-based Elixir application using Semaphore, highlighting its ease of use for both open-source and private projects. The application, hosted on GitHub, features a React-based frontend and uses Phoenix Channels for real-time updates, particularly through an ImageTweetStreamer component that streams and stores tweets with images. Adams emphasizes the importance of automated testing and CI to maintain code quality, noting that Semaphore simplifies the CI setup process significantly compared to traditional infrastructure like Jenkins. He also describes how Semaphore facilitates CD to Heroku, enabling automated deployments from the master branch, which enhances software quality by encouraging developers to be cautious about what they merge. The article conveys Adams's journey from manual to automated deployment, showcasing Semaphore's user-friendly interface that democratizes access to robust CI/CD setups without the need for extensive infrastructure expertise.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk enables users to deploy and manage applications in the AWS cloud without focusing on underlying infrastructure, offering a streamlined alternative to traditional AWS services like EC2 or Elastic Load Balancing. The integration with Semaphore enhances this process by facilitating continuous deployment, allowing users to automatically or manually deploy applications from a selected branch once all tests pass. This integration simplifies the deployment process by detecting existing Elastic Beanstalk applications and guiding users through with minimal input, providing a shared deployment history for teams. A detailed tutorial is available to assist users in starting from scratch, exemplified with a Ruby on Rails application, although the process is applicable to any programming language.

Scheduled for release on October 20th, 2015, the platform update introduces several software version upgrades, including Cassandra 2.2.2, Git 2.6.1, and Go 1.4.3 with important security fixes. io.js is updated to 3.3.1, MySQL to 5.6.27 with numerous InnoDB and Replication bug fixes, and NodeJS to 4.1.2, which users can implement via the nvm use command. PHP receives updates to versions 5.5.30 and 5.6.14, and RethinkDB is updated to 2.1.5. Users can test the new platform by selecting Ubuntu 14.04 LTS v1510 in the Project Settings and report issues before the final release. In the final release, Cassandra is updated to 2.2.3, Git to 2.6.2, and NodeJS 4.2.1 LTS is added. Redis is updated to 3.0.5, and Qt WebKit to 5.4.2 with backward compatibility and critical security fixes, though switching Qt versions requires expiring the project cache. A detailed changelog is available, and further discussion is encouraged on Discord.

Rendered Text introduces a revamped build commands editor for Semaphore's continuous integration platform, aimed at enhancing user experience by simplifying the setup and customization process for projects. The new editor allows for the easy addition and management of parallel threads, segregating commands into distinct sections like Setup and Post-thread, with the flexibility to name and manage threads independently. This redesign addresses previous limitations by minimizing clicks through features like drag-and-drop command organization and quick editing options, enhancing the efficiency of setting up complex build processes. With these improvements, Semaphore aims to make continuous integration more intuitive and user-friendly, encouraging feedback and discussion through platforms like Discord.