testing, staging, the production…web design?life
“We developed it, tested it out, went into staging , and then we went onto production”,
Sounds like a group performing a play. Right? Well yes, but in this case I was actualy describing the process of developing for the web.
What?
Yep. This is the process any web-designer should go through in order to create anything for the web.
Let’s take for example, a flash website:
I develop the basic flash files and put them onto my 200 mhz “dev” box running College Linux, via ftp and then I can view the files in my web browser or edit them directly on that box just as if they where on my pc. Every so often I save backups…no biggee.
When the files get to a point where I feel good about showing them to a client, I push them to another box running windows. This box is called test. Why would I put them on a Windows machine? So I can make sure that all my work will run perfectly on any server regardless of OS. From this test server I can show my work to any associates or clients. Once I’ve verified that it works correctly, I’ll push the files to a staging server. In most cases this is an actual web server. Sometimes even the same server that the production website is housed on. Much like a play, the work is “staged” before it goes onto production. Everything should work EXACTLY the same way before the files go into production. The night before the files go into production there is usually a “push”. This typically means that all the developers involved test everything out on staging and then test and pound the server immediatly after all the files are on production. This is why you’ll see developers coming in an hour later the morning after the push. It typically means they where up anywhere between 2- 6 am.
This whole process is important because it really cuts out allot-of the bugs you would typically have and allows you to save multiple versions of files for version control purposes.
I find it funny how many great developers don’t even use stagin servers. But here’s a great developer that does.
From Sproutit:
IMHO, having a staging server, where you have a daily or even hourly process that automagically updates the server with the latest development code, and is accessible by your team to be tested and hammered on from anywhere, is the closest thing to a daily build you’ll get for a webapp.
Posted on : August 28, 2006
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One Response to “testing, staging, the production…web design?”
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“We developed it, tested it out, went into staging , and then we went onto production”,
Sounds like a group performing a play. Right? Well yes, but in this case I was actualy describing the process of developing for the web.
What?
Yep. This is the process any web-designer should go through in order to create anything for the web.
Let’s take for example, a flash website:
I develop the basic flash files and put them onto my 200 mhz “dev” box running College Linux, via ftp and then I can view the files in my web browser or edit them directly on that box just as if they where on my pc. Every so often I save backups…no biggee.
When the files get to a point where I feel good about showing them to a client, I push them to another box running windows. This box is called test. Why would I put them on a Windows machine? So I can make sure that all my work will run perfectly on any server regardless of OS. From this test server I can show my work to any associates or clients. Once I’ve verified that it works correctly, I’ll push the files to a staging server. In most cases this is an actual web server. Sometimes even the same server that the production website is housed on. Much like a play, the work is “staged” before it goes onto production. Everything should work EXACTLY the same way before the files go into production. The night before the files go into production there is usually a “push”. This typically means that all the developers involved test everything out on staging and then test and pound the server immediatly after all the files are on production. This is why you’ll see developers coming in an hour later the morning after the push. It typically means they where up anywhere between 2- 6 am.
This whole process is important because it really cuts out allot-of the bugs you would typically have and allows you to save multiple versions of files for version control purposes.
I find it funny how many great developers don’t even use stagin servers. But here’s a great developer that does.
From Sproutit:
IMHO, having a staging server, where you have a daily or even hourly process that automagically updates the server with the latest development code, and is accessible by your team to be tested and hammered on from anywhere, is the closest thing to a daily build you’ll get for a webapp.
Posted on : August 28, 2006
« Sunday Meme: Checklist
M&M’s and Revenge »
August 28th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Thanks for the Sprout quote and linkage.
I couldn’t imagine going back to not having a staging server, especially for complicated webapps like hosted email!