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Class 7: Introduction to web technology entrepreneurship

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This document summarizes a lecture about building web applications. It discusses that building a web application typically involves teams with roles like developers, designers, project managers. It covers topics like hosting options, deployment processes, project management tools and techniques, and hiring and managing developers. The document provides overviews and comparisons of hosting options like dedicated servers, shared hosting, virtual private servers, and cloud hosting. It also discusses deployment methods, environments, and tools. Project management topics covered include release planning, agile methodologies, budgeting, and tips for successful projects. The document ends with sections on hiring developers, managing developers, code reviews, and outsourcing.

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Allan Chao Startup Consultant Startup V8 allan@startupv8.com UC Berkeley Extension, Summer 2012
Question of the day: How many people are involved in building a web application?
The Agenda  Quiz  Quick review of last session  Servers, Hosting  Deployment  Release Cycles, Project Management  Engineering management
Quiz Time Good luck! 10 minutes max
Quick review of prior material  Databases  IDE Comparison  Database model  Notepad++  Entity relationship model  NetBeans  SQL  Visual Studio  Database Engines  Backend Programming  RDBMS  Truly requires clarification of ideas  MYSQL  Complexity  SQL Server  Programming Languages  APIs  Programming example (calculator)  Application Programing Interface  Backend integration with frontend  Precautions  ASP.NET  SDK = Software Development Kit  Error validation  Technology Stacks  Principles of Programming  Many different options in different layers  Some code is better than others  LAMP = Linux Apache Mysql PHP  Mistakes have a high cost  WINS = Windows IIS .NET SQL Server
Class 7: Introduction to web technology entrepreneurship
What is Hosting?  Where you store the code  Makes the website publicly-accessible  What you’re paying for:  Physical components  Disk space (space in GB)  Memory (RAM)  Processing power (CPU)  Datacenter costs  Electricity  Cooling  Network Bandwidth  Administration (technical skill)
What is a server?  Physical machine  Usually horizontal, 1-2 inches tall  Designed and built for reliability, not features  Lots of redundant components
What is a data center?  A.k.a. Server farm  Lots of computers  Room gets hot…  Lots of fans, very loud  High security
3 most common hosting options  3 most common hosting options  Dedicated Hosting  Shared Hosting  Virtual Private Server (VPS)  Other hosting options  Colocation  Cloud hosting
Dedicated Hosting  Means you rent a physical machine provided by the host  Hardware options provided by the host, you pick one  Tends to be around $200-1000/month per machine, depending on quality  Great option for almost-total control  When is it right?  If you need lots of power and control. However, costs can be high.
Shared Hosting  You “share” a dedicated host with other customers (you don’t know who they are)  Share CPU-power  Share network connection  Sometimes, share IP address  You have limited access to the computer, so less flexibility  When is it right?  Generally a poor choice for startups  Better choice for small business websites
Virtual Private Server (VPS)  Virtual Private Server = “virtual machine”  Like having a dedicated server, except that there isn’t a physical machine you own.  Your machine is a “virtual” machine, that lives inside of a physical machine. • When is it right? • Low cost way of having lots of control. • Great option to start
Class 7: Introduction to web technology entrepreneurship
Colocation  Means you buy your own physical machine  Much more expensive than consumer machines… generally costs at least $4,000, easily $10,000  In addition to monthly fees to data center  You choose the hardware  Maximum flexibility regarding the hardware used (e.g. fancy servers and storage configurations)  You manage everything.  Requires more effort and management compared to cloud and managed  When is it right?  Best for maturing startups that can afford costly servers and hire staff to manage them
Cloud Hosting  “Pay as you go”, pay-for-use  Amazon EC2, S3  Good for starting out when server needs are unknown and it’s easy to scale up and down quickly  Best for environments that have differing scale needs on a regular basis  (e.g. imagine you normally need 20 servers but for a few hours each night you need 100 servers to crunch data)  When is it right?  Great low-cost way to start, but limitations can be frustrating  Excellent choice if sudden scale is needed
Comparison Managed (dedicated, Colocation Cloud shared, VPS) (aka colo) Cost at first Average Very high Very low Cost at scale Average-high Low Very high Flexibility Medium Very flexible Not flexible Management Depends on host You manage Harder to manage
Tools for hosting  Who is hosting a website?  http://www.whoishostingthis.com  Note that high-traffic websites run their own data centers
Rackspace  http://www.rackspacestartups.com/
Try Buying Hosting  Cheaper and lower-quality options  Your domain registrant  Bluehost, dreamhost, etc.  Better and more expensive options  Rackspace  Softlayer
Class 7: Introduction to web technology entrepreneurship
Deployment  Deployment = Release = Shipping  The process of getting a website from your local machine to the host  Once it is on the host, it’s viewable by the public
FTP  File Transfer Protocol  Very old way of transferring files  We’ll use Filezilla
Practice Deploying  FTP Connect to 208.79.77.29  Username class  Password: same password as classroom computers  Create a folder with your name (lowercase, one word)  Upload your HTML files  Test it at http://class.testing.startupv8.com/yourname
Multiple Environments  Risks of single-environment  Accidental deployment  Very hard to recover in production  High cost, high pressure, lots of “site is down” time  Dev > QA > Staging > Production  The “build” process  Automated tests  Automatic documentation and/or release notes  Automatically moving from one stage to another  “latest build”, “nightly build”, “build 142”
Advanced Deployment Tools  Beyond Compare (like FTP, but highlights line-by-line differences)  Custom programs  Write your own script that copies files  Available software  xCopy / robocopy  MSDeploy  UrbanCode www.urbancode.com
Class 7: Introduction to web technology entrepreneurship
Release Planning and Cycles  Planning process of what to deploy and when  MVP  Version 2  Version 3…
Case study: firefox
Project Management  Starts off as…  1 product owner, 1 designer, 1 engineer = 3 people  Soon afterward…  1 product owner, 1 designer, 3 engineers = 5 people  Company grows…  1 product owner, 2 designers, 4 engineers, 1 project manager, 1 tester = 9 people  Project management = coordination and allocation of people, time, money.
Gantt chart  Like a waterfall process  Great for known projects  Less applicable for ongoing development
Agile Development  Small, incremental Iterations  1-2 weeks  Standing meetings  “Product owner”  Burndown charts
Tools for Project Management  FugBugz  BaseCamp  Trello  Pivotal Tracker
Budgeting  Very hard to budget new development projects  How much does it cost to build a house? It depends  Do a bottom up estimate, not a top down estimate  A 2-story house in a specific subdivision with a garage and 3 bed 2 bath with the same interior that all the other houses in the subdivision have?
Ninety-ninety rule
Good project management  Setting milestones  Hitting the milestones  Lots of communication  Don’t change the features  Go through the design process
Tips on Shipping  Stick to a feature-set, and build it.  Adding developers doesn’t always make the project finish sooner  “The mythical man-month”  Q: How does a large software project get to be one year late?  A: One day at a time!
Deployments on closed platforms  E.g. Apple App Store  Unclear requirements  Time consuming and frustrating
Class 7: Introduction to web technology entrepreneurship
Hiring Developers  Hiring full time developers  Very hard, very expensive  Part-time developers (freelancers)  Tends to be the best option for startups  Difficult even for engineers to assess skill in an interview  Developers are almost never effective on joining a project… always takes training time
Managing Developers  Great developers are very self-motivated  They like to work on things they think are important  They like to solve interesting problems  Constant pressure is annoying
Extreme Programming  A subtype of agile development  Adds some elements  Pair programming  Extensive unit testing  Flat management
Code Reviews  Engineers look over each other’s code as a “second pair of eyes”  Tends to result in much better code  Also enables peer-to-peer training
Outsourcing  Tends to be very difficult for startups  Low quality work  Offshore companies do not design  And they produce low-quality code  Poor communication  The takeaway: tempting, but usually a net loss
Class 7: Introduction to web technology entrepreneurship
Homework  Individual, read the following:  Read Michael Wolfe’s answer... http://www.quora.com/Engineering-Management/Why- are-software-development-task-estimations-regularly-off-by-a-factor-of-2-3  Mythical man-month… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month  (Team) Deploy your application  If there’s no backend, that’s OK  (Team) Keep Going!!  Keep programming  Keep working on the pitch deck  Keep marketing your new startup  Occasionally review the market research data (Google Analytics, etc.)

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Class 7: Introduction to web technology entrepreneurship

  • 1. Allan Chao Startup Consultant Startup V8 allan@startupv8.com UC Berkeley Extension, Summer 2012
  • 2. Question of the day: How many people are involved in building a web application?
  • 3. The Agenda  Quiz  Quick review of last session  Servers, Hosting  Deployment  Release Cycles, Project Management  Engineering management
  • 4. Quiz Time Good luck! 10 minutes max
  • 5. Quick review of prior material  Databases  IDE Comparison  Database model  Notepad++  Entity relationship model  NetBeans  SQL  Visual Studio  Database Engines  Backend Programming  RDBMS  Truly requires clarification of ideas  MYSQL  Complexity  SQL Server  Programming Languages  APIs  Programming example (calculator)  Application Programing Interface  Backend integration with frontend  Precautions  ASP.NET  SDK = Software Development Kit  Error validation  Technology Stacks  Principles of Programming  Many different options in different layers  Some code is better than others  LAMP = Linux Apache Mysql PHP  Mistakes have a high cost  WINS = Windows IIS .NET SQL Server
  • 7. What is Hosting?  Where you store the code  Makes the website publicly-accessible  What you’re paying for:  Physical components  Disk space (space in GB)  Memory (RAM)  Processing power (CPU)  Datacenter costs  Electricity  Cooling  Network Bandwidth  Administration (technical skill)
  • 8. What is a server?  Physical machine  Usually horizontal, 1-2 inches tall  Designed and built for reliability, not features  Lots of redundant components
  • 9. What is a data center?  A.k.a. Server farm  Lots of computers  Room gets hot…  Lots of fans, very loud  High security
  • 10. 3 most common hosting options  3 most common hosting options  Dedicated Hosting  Shared Hosting  Virtual Private Server (VPS)  Other hosting options  Colocation  Cloud hosting
  • 11. Dedicated Hosting  Means you rent a physical machine provided by the host  Hardware options provided by the host, you pick one  Tends to be around $200-1000/month per machine, depending on quality  Great option for almost-total control  When is it right?  If you need lots of power and control. However, costs can be high.
  • 12. Shared Hosting  You “share” a dedicated host with other customers (you don’t know who they are)  Share CPU-power  Share network connection  Sometimes, share IP address  You have limited access to the computer, so less flexibility  When is it right?  Generally a poor choice for startups  Better choice for small business websites
  • 13. Virtual Private Server (VPS)  Virtual Private Server = “virtual machine”  Like having a dedicated server, except that there isn’t a physical machine you own.  Your machine is a “virtual” machine, that lives inside of a physical machine. • When is it right? • Low cost way of having lots of control. • Great option to start
  • 15. Colocation  Means you buy your own physical machine  Much more expensive than consumer machines… generally costs at least $4,000, easily $10,000  In addition to monthly fees to data center  You choose the hardware  Maximum flexibility regarding the hardware used (e.g. fancy servers and storage configurations)  You manage everything.  Requires more effort and management compared to cloud and managed  When is it right?  Best for maturing startups that can afford costly servers and hire staff to manage them
  • 16. Cloud Hosting  “Pay as you go”, pay-for-use  Amazon EC2, S3  Good for starting out when server needs are unknown and it’s easy to scale up and down quickly  Best for environments that have differing scale needs on a regular basis  (e.g. imagine you normally need 20 servers but for a few hours each night you need 100 servers to crunch data)  When is it right?  Great low-cost way to start, but limitations can be frustrating  Excellent choice if sudden scale is needed
  • 17. Comparison Managed (dedicated, Colocation Cloud shared, VPS) (aka colo) Cost at first Average Very high Very low Cost at scale Average-high Low Very high Flexibility Medium Very flexible Not flexible Management Depends on host You manage Harder to manage
  • 18. Tools for hosting  Who is hosting a website?  http://www.whoishostingthis.com  Note that high-traffic websites run their own data centers
  • 20. Try Buying Hosting  Cheaper and lower-quality options  Your domain registrant  Bluehost, dreamhost, etc.  Better and more expensive options  Rackspace  Softlayer
  • 22. Deployment  Deployment = Release = Shipping  The process of getting a website from your local machine to the host  Once it is on the host, it’s viewable by the public
  • 23. FTP  File Transfer Protocol  Very old way of transferring files  We’ll use Filezilla
  • 24. Practice Deploying  FTP Connect to 208.79.77.29  Username class  Password: same password as classroom computers  Create a folder with your name (lowercase, one word)  Upload your HTML files  Test it at http://class.testing.startupv8.com/yourname
  • 25. Multiple Environments  Risks of single-environment  Accidental deployment  Very hard to recover in production  High cost, high pressure, lots of “site is down” time  Dev > QA > Staging > Production  The “build” process  Automated tests  Automatic documentation and/or release notes  Automatically moving from one stage to another  “latest build”, “nightly build”, “build 142”
  • 26. Advanced Deployment Tools  Beyond Compare (like FTP, but highlights line-by-line differences)  Custom programs  Write your own script that copies files  Available software  xCopy / robocopy  MSDeploy  UrbanCode www.urbancode.com
  • 28. Release Planning and Cycles  Planning process of what to deploy and when  MVP  Version 2  Version 3…
  • 30. Project Management  Starts off as…  1 product owner, 1 designer, 1 engineer = 3 people  Soon afterward…  1 product owner, 1 designer, 3 engineers = 5 people  Company grows…  1 product owner, 2 designers, 4 engineers, 1 project manager, 1 tester = 9 people  Project management = coordination and allocation of people, time, money.
  • 31. Gantt chart  Like a waterfall process  Great for known projects  Less applicable for ongoing development
  • 32. Agile Development  Small, incremental Iterations  1-2 weeks  Standing meetings  “Product owner”  Burndown charts
  • 33. Tools for Project Management  FugBugz  BaseCamp  Trello  Pivotal Tracker
  • 34. Budgeting  Very hard to budget new development projects  How much does it cost to build a house? It depends  Do a bottom up estimate, not a top down estimate  A 2-story house in a specific subdivision with a garage and 3 bed 2 bath with the same interior that all the other houses in the subdivision have?
  • 36. Good project management  Setting milestones  Hitting the milestones  Lots of communication  Don’t change the features  Go through the design process
  • 37. Tips on Shipping  Stick to a feature-set, and build it.  Adding developers doesn’t always make the project finish sooner  “The mythical man-month”  Q: How does a large software project get to be one year late?  A: One day at a time!
  • 38. Deployments on closed platforms  E.g. Apple App Store  Unclear requirements  Time consuming and frustrating
  • 40. Hiring Developers  Hiring full time developers  Very hard, very expensive  Part-time developers (freelancers)  Tends to be the best option for startups  Difficult even for engineers to assess skill in an interview  Developers are almost never effective on joining a project… always takes training time
  • 41. Managing Developers  Great developers are very self-motivated  They like to work on things they think are important  They like to solve interesting problems  Constant pressure is annoying
  • 42. Extreme Programming  A subtype of agile development  Adds some elements  Pair programming  Extensive unit testing  Flat management
  • 43. Code Reviews  Engineers look over each other’s code as a “second pair of eyes”  Tends to result in much better code  Also enables peer-to-peer training
  • 44. Outsourcing  Tends to be very difficult for startups  Low quality work  Offshore companies do not design  And they produce low-quality code  Poor communication  The takeaway: tempting, but usually a net loss
  • 46. Homework  Individual, read the following:  Read Michael Wolfe’s answer... http://www.quora.com/Engineering-Management/Why- are-software-development-task-estimations-regularly-off-by-a-factor-of-2-3  Mythical man-month… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month  (Team) Deploy your application  If there’s no backend, that’s OK  (Team) Keep Going!!  Keep programming  Keep working on the pitch deck  Keep marketing your new startup  Occasionally review the market research data (Google Analytics, etc.)