October 2017 Summaries

Semaphore, a continuous integration service known for running jobs on dedicated hardware, has upgraded its standard platform with faster hardware to enhance performance across all subscription plans, including the free tier. This upgrade, involving the use of data center machines, was benchmarked using sysbench, revealing performance improvements: 15.9% in CPU, 14.7% in memory, 4.9% in file I/O, and 9.4% in MySQL operations. Implemented via a seamless Blue-Green deployment over three days, the upgrade also led to procedural enhancements and increased automation, allowing for rapid scalability in infrastructure management. While real-world improvements may vary, users can expect performance gains ranging from 5% to 15% depending on their specific configurations and job types. Semaphore emphasizes its commitment to making continuous integration both fast and easy, inviting users to learn more about its services and engage with the community on Discord.

PHP remains one of the top 10 most utilized server-side languages, prominently featured in numerous websites. An annual analysis of PHP versions employed in commercial projects on Semaphore's hosted Continuous Integration service reveals that the majority of projects still use version 5.6, despite its active support ending in January 2017, with security updates available until the end of 2018. Versions 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5, which are no longer supported, are still used in 34% of projects, likely due to the complexities involved in upgrading to version 7.x, such as changes in error handling and variable management. Version 7.0, released in December 2015, is used by 19% of projects, and its support period is nearing its end, while version 7.1, released a year later, is adopted by only 9% of projects. Semaphore supports all these versions on its platform, encouraging users to upgrade and participate in discussions about PHP usage and Semaphore's continuous integration services.

Rails Testing Grader is a tool developed by Semaphore to allow developers to compare the performance of their Ruby on Rails test suites and CI build times with other projects of similar size, using anonymous real-world data. By entering specific metrics such as current CI build time, and the number of lines of code and test code, users can see how their projects stack up against a sample of 1,000 private Ruby on Rails projects segmented into five size categories. Semaphore's objective is to provide insights into industry norms, with an emphasis on maintaining a CI build time of under ten minutes. The tool encourages feedback and discussions, inviting users to suggest improvements or the creation of similar tools for other programming languages or tech stacks.

Python's community remains the fastest growing among programming languages, yet a large portion still relies on Python 2.7 for building real-world applications, although usage has decreased to 63.7% from over 70% the previous year. Despite the release of Python 3.0 in 2008, many developers have not transitioned due to the stability and familiarity of Python 2.7, which continues to receive long-term support as its end date remains undecided. However, those who have adopted Python 3 find it easier to upgrade to newer versions, with a notable shift from version 3.4 to 3.5 and 3.6. As of April, AWS Lambda and Semaphore's continuous integration service support both Python 3.6 and 2.7, reflecting the rapid evolution within the Python 3 community. This ongoing trend towards Python 3 adoption will be monitored in future reports to understand how developers tackle updates, while Semaphore continues its mission to streamline continuous integration processes.

Semaphore has introduced a new version of their API, Semaphore API v2, which simplifies the management of teams and projects for large organizations. With this API, administrators and organization owners can perform all CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) actions related to teams using basic bash commands, thus streamlining the process of setting up teams with users and projects. The API allows users to list and manage teams, create and delete them, add or remove teams from projects, and manage team members through a series of straightforward requests. Users can easily authenticate using API credentials found in their user settings, and the process of adding users and assigning projects is made efficient through simple scripting capabilities. Semaphore aims to enhance organizational overview and member management, and is actively seeking user feedback to further improve the API, including plans for a command-line interface to enhance usability. Additionally, Semaphore offers the Semaphore Boosters feature to optimize Rails test suite runtimes, emphasizing their mission to make continuous integration faster and more efficient.