February 2019 Summaries

I've mastered Docker Compose by following four best practices: organizing my Compose file to prioritize developer happiness, using the default docker-compose.yml file for simple "start the whole solution" commands, utilizing docker-compose.override.yml for custom settings, and leveraging the YAML "entrypoint:" object to run a custom entrypoint script just for development needs. By adopting these strategies, I've significantly improved my development workflows and streamlined my team's environment setup with Docker Compose.

To improve error resolution, Sentry and GitLab have collaborated to enhance their integration with features such as release and commit tracking, suspect commits, and direct linking of issues within the Sentry UI, streamlining workflows and reducing time to issue resolution. This integration allows users to manage GitLab issues directly in Sentry, resolve issues via commit messages or pull requests, and view errors tracked by Sentry within their GitLab projects, providing a clear path to addressing errors contextually while remaining within their existing workflow.

To debug and monitor Netlify function errors effectively, developers can leverage Sentry, a powerful error tracking tool with built-in integrations for nearly everything, including HTTP Toolkit. Setting up Sentry requires creating an account, project, and DSN variable in the Netlify build, then initializing the Sentry SDK. To catch handler errors, developers create a reportError method to wrap function handlers, catching errors and reporting them to Sentry. For reliability, they also need to wait for reported errors to be fully sent and prevent Sentry callbacks from interfering with normal Lambda shutdown. Optional extensions include extra reporting and including the function's git commit as the Sentry release. With these steps, developers can set up reliable error reporting for their Netlify functions.

Source maps` allow developers to view source code context from stack traces in their original form, which is particularly useful when debugging minified or transpiled code. To generate and make these source maps available for Sentry, developers can use tools like Webpack and Rollup with the `devtool: "source-map"` option. Once generated, source maps can be uploaded directly to Sentry using the `sentry-webpack-plugin`, which requires configuration of the plugin, client, and Releases API. Additionally, updating the Sentry SDK configuration with the `RewriteFrames` integration is necessary to resolve errors properly.

Sentry has welcomed Anton Ovchinnikov to their team, where he joins from MoneyPark, a Swiss fintech company, holding the position of first DevOps engineer. As part of Sentry's operations team in their Vienna office, Anton ensures client infrastructure teams can safely deploy applications. In his free time, Anton enjoys learning new skills such as juggling and daydreaming about his alpaca farm aspirations.

Sentry has evolved into a successful open source software company by adopting a unique business model that combines free open source version with a SaaS offering, allowing it to serve both on-premise and cloud-based users, while also providing a direct path for developers to contribute to the codebase. This approach has enabled the company to grow and invest in features such as compliance and security, while still maintaining its commitment to open source principles. Despite some trade-offs, Sentry's growth has been driven by its ability to provide a solution that is right for users, whether they choose the free open source version or the paid SaaS offering.

Sentry is releasing new features that will be available to certain plans, including Developer, Team, and Business plans. These features include access to issues, releases, and user feedback from the sidebar, select multiple environments for views, and apply a date range filter to most views. Additionally, users on these plans will have access to advanced search parameters, browsing of raw event data, and new dashboards and discover tools. The features are currently available to Early Adopter organizations that opt-in, but will be widely released soon. Users can opt in or out of the Early Adopter program at any time, and the features will be rolled out to all plans with the current billing structure.

In 2018, Sentry published its year in review, highlighting the company's growth and achievements. The year saw over one million developers using the platform, with 400 billion events sent and 74 employees at the end of the year. Sentry expanded its offices to Toronto, San Francisco, Austin, and Vienna, hosting meetups and conferences like GitHub Universe and AWS re:Invent. The company shipped several notable features, including a new Slack integration, Electron SDK, Rust SDK, and improved error message translation. Sentry also raised $16 million in funding and implemented various integrations with popular development tools like Jira and Azure DevOps. The year's accomplishments demonstrate the company's mission to make software less bad, and they look forward to continuing their work in 2019.

The Sentry Workflow — Triage` is a series of articles discussing how to optimize the development process by minimizing the impact of errors on the workflow. The focus is on creating infrastructure and culture equipped to handle unanticipated issues, providing visibility into code, and maintaining workflow momentum. This involves triaging errors effectively, understanding the context and stack trace, using tags to understand issue impact specificity, and making decisions about critical, suspect, minor, and irrelevant errors. Sentry provides features such as breadcrumbs, alerts, and Ignore options to streamline the triaging process, allowing developers to work at their highest efficiency and increase accountability throughout the application lifecycle.

Prioritizing errors that matter with Sentry + Jira Server is essential for maintaining a productive workflow, as bugs are inevitable but can be managed by paralleling error monitoring and sprint planning. The new Jira Server integration allows users to prioritize errors that matter while creating user stories and issues, plan sprints, and distribute tasks across their software team. With two-way issue sync, all stakeholders can track projects in real time using their preferred interface, and organization-wide settings enable efficient configuration without duplicating efforts. This tighter experience between Sentry and Jira Server saves users time and setup costs while reducing overhead and upkeep expenses.

Mimi Nguyen is a Technical Writer at Sentry who has a unique combination of software engineering skills and creative writing background. She enjoys ordering from restaurant menus quickly and is passionate about cheese curds. Outside work, she likes exploring San Francisco, eating dim sum, and spending time with her cats, Pancake and Maple.