I have recently moved from a web context into a mobile context (building a React Native app). One of the most powerful processes in the web world was Continuous Delivery. I would like to recreate a continuous delivery pipeline, into production, for the React Native mobile context. My understanding is that this is possible so long as only the javascript bundle gets updates rather than the underlying native components.
I have been finding blogs such as:
https://hiddentao.com/archives/2017/02/17/continuous-integration-for-react-native-with-testfairy-testflight-deploy/ and it appears that fastlane is the most common solution for Continuous Integration in the mobile ecosystem, but posts about Continuous Delivery are a little thin on the ground.
Is this because it is impossible? Is the promised land of "just update the js bundle" a lie? And if it is not impossible, how would I configure fastlane to push directly to production? Or would I use some other tool? Is it generally considered an anti pattern in the space? If so why?
It IS possible to update the javascript portion of a React Native app.
Fastlane is a great tool for building and deploying mobile apps but it is not itself a continuous delivery tool. However, used in conjunction with some other CI tool (Jenkins etc) it can make it easy to configure app store or beta releases triggered at some set interval or based on a certain trigger.
Fastlane is primarily designed to solve the issues associated with building and deploying native applications and as such it is very useful for building/deploying the native RN app to the app store but is likely not the best tool for managing your JS pushes. There are a few tools that are popular for pushing the JS code:
https://deploy.apphub.io/
and
http://microsoft.github.io/code-push/
are two popular mechanisms specifically built for this purpose and provide command line tools for deploying updated javascript. These could be configured in Jenkins (or another CI server) without necessarily needing to use fastlane.
As #john_ryan specified you could use CodePush for application updates. Nevertheless, it is worth taking into account some features of this solution:
You can't use hot updates if you need to add some native modules.
It strictly not recommended to use hot updates if you updated React Native version. In most cases, the consequences will be sad.
New users will get outdated built-in version at first app launching. Actual version will be presented on second run only.
Given all of the above CodePush is best for:
To decrease app update time for critical bugs. Of course you must release native update as soon as possible in this case also.
Non major updates. For major updates in most cases you need to update screenshots, app description, release notes and draw the user's attention about update. Hot update for major changes does not fit because of "second run update" cycle.
Testing stability of new update on a small part of users.
A/B testing.
You should use fastlane in any case. It really cool for custom builds, updating stores meta info, screenshots etc. For beta builds delivery I recommend Crashlytics Beta.
Related
I'm developing an application in ReactJS where I quite often push new changes to the the application.
When the users load upp the application they do not always get the newest version of the application causing breaking changes and errors with the express backend I have.
From what I have researched you can invalidate the cache using "cache busting" or a similar method. Although from all the questions I have seen on stackoverflow they have no clear consensus on how to do it, and the latest update was sometime in 2017.
How would one in a modern day ReactJS application invalidate the browsers cache in an efficient and automatic way when deploying?
If it's relevant, I'm using docker and docker-compose to deploy my application
There's not one-fits-all solution. Pretty common is adding some random hash to the bundle file, which will cause browser to process the file again from server.
Something like: app.js?v=435893452 instead of app.js. Most modern bundle tools like Webpack can do all of that automatically but it's hard to give you direction without knowing your setup.
I have a website on AppEngine that is 99% static. It is running on Python 2.7 runtime. Now the time has come to evolve this webapp, and since I have almost none Python code in it, I'd prefer to write it in Go instead.
Can I change runtime from Python 2.7 to Go, while keeping the project intact? Specifically, I want to keep the same app-ID, the same custom domain attached to it, the same SSL certificate, and so on.
What do I have to do in order to do that? I surely have to change runtime in the app.yaml. Is there anything else?
Bonus question: will such change happen without a downtime?
I'd be grateful for any links to documentation on exactly that (swapping runtime on a live app). I can't find any.
Specify a runtime as well as a new value for version. When deployed you'll have an older version that is Python and a newer version that is Go. There won't be any downtime (same as when deploying a newer version of Python).
Rather than trusting links/docs (that may be out of date or not 100% exactly what you're trying to do), why not create a new GAE-Std project for testing purposes and try it yourself. Having a GAE-Std test project is good for testing new function (especially by other testers who won't have access to the dev environ on your laptop).
The GAE services offer complete code isolation. So it should be possible to simply deploy a new version of the service, which can be written in a different language or even use a different GAE (standard/flex) environment. Personally I didn't go through a language change, but I did go through a split of a single-service app into a multi-service one, I see no reason for which the same principles wouldn't apply.
Maybe develop the new version as a separate app first, to be able to test it properly without risking an accidental impact on the old version and only after that bring the code as a new version in the old app. That'd be using the GAE project isolation. You can, in fact, test the entire version migration as a separate app if you so desire without even touching the existing app. I am using this technique - a separate app ID - to implement a staging environment for my app, completely isolated from my production app, see How to copy / clone entire Google App Engine Project
Make sure to not switch traffic to the new version at deployment time. This keeps the app working with the old version. Test first that the new version works as expected using Targeted routing. Then maybe use Splitting traffic across multiple versions to perform A/B testing with just a small percentage of the traffic going to the new version. Finally, when happy with the results, switch all traffic to the new version.
You need to pay special attention to the app-level configs (dispatch, cron, queue, datastore indexes), shared by all services/versions. They need to be functionally equivalent in the 2 versions. The service isolation doesn't apply to them, only project isolation can ensure no impact to the old version.
There should be no need to make any change to the app ID, custom domain mapping or SSL config. The above mentioned tests should confirm that.
A few potentially interesting posts related to re-working services/modules:
Converting App Engine frontend versions to modules
Google App Engine upgrading part by part
Migrating to app engine modules, test versions first?
Advantages of implementing CI/CD environments at GAE project/app level vs service/module level?
Is there a good solution for A|B Testing in mobile apps like online? I know with iOS it's against the TOS to have different user experiences with identical actions, but what about Android? And what about firms like Apsalar which claim to offer A|B Testing in their analytics for apps? How would one implement that?
Artisan mobile makes an A/B testing solution for iOS and Android.
The basic idea is that you drop the SDK in your app and then put it out in the app store. You can use the service to create A/B tests and optimize your application without having to touch the code or go back through the app store for each test.
For mobile apps, A/B testing basically works by replacing static, hard-coded objects with dynamic objects that can be controlled from a remote server.
This methodology raises a potential performance issue: What if the end user's device is not connected to pull configuration data for an object being tested? We've built Splitforce (http://splitforce.com) to seamlessly setup and manage A/B testing in mobile apps while controlling for performance risk.
Los details
Once the SDK and experiment has been integrated, non-technical product or marketing folks can setup new tests or tweak existing tests on-the-fly - without having to resubmit to the app stores or hassle engineers.
On first app launch, the mobile app requests configuration data from the server and then caches that data locally on the device. This is to both ensure a consistent user experience on subsequent app launches, and prevent corrupt test results by guaranteeing accurate attribution of conversion events to variations.
If the end user's connection fails or is timed-out on first app launch, the library displays a hard-coded 'default' variation. And to make sure that everything is looking good before you go live, we've built a 'shake to preview' functionality in debug mode that does just that :-)
Once the app is deployed with Splitforce event data are stored locally and sent back to the website to be displayed for each variation alongside measurements of observed improvement and statistical confidence.
Instructions on integration of the SDKs and new tests can be found at https://splitforce.com/documentation.
And how is it used?
We've seen Splitforce used to A/B test:
UI elements + layouts (color, text, images, ad/menu placements)
UX workflows
Game dynamics + rules
Prices + promotions
We've also seen the tool used to control mobile apps remotely, by essentially setting one variation of a test subject to 100%.
Yes there is: E.g. the company Leanplum offers a Visual Interface Editor for iOS and Android: This requires no coding, and Leanplum will automatically detect the elements and allow you to change them. No engineers or app store resubmissions required.
Apple must have updated their TOS (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#user-interface) - At least I am not aware of anything that prohibits altering the UI in a way that the Leanplum Visual Editor is doing it.
Generally that is achieved by method swizzling (iOS) and reflection (Android).
To learn more about the Leanplum Visual Interface Editor, check out leanplum.com. They offer a free 30-day trial.
(Disclaimer: I am an Engineer at Leanplum.)
I wrote a small open source project called Switchboard.
It let's you A/B test, remote configure and stage rollout things in your native mobile app. It contains a server component that specifies what information the application should have and 2 native clients for android and iOS.
You can find the codebase at github.com/keepsafe/switchboard and a blog post about how you can use it HERE
The new kid around the block is Arise.io. They provide an A/B testing service for iOS and Android.
I wrote MSActiveConfig, an extremely flexible framework to do remote configuration + A/B testing on iOS, with a portable format to be able to implement clients on other platforms: https://github.com/mindsnacks/MSActiveConfig.
This framework is being used in applications with more than 5 million users.
There have been a spate of new entrants in this field...you could check out Swerve, Appiterate, leanplum...all of them seem to be having SDKs for iOS as well, not really sure whether and how Apple TOS allows for that, but since there are some many of them doing it, there must be a way.
Yes, new entrants are showing up in app A/B testing practically every week! But, I think Appiterate has gone two steps ahead of other competitors by creating a visual interface, without any need to re-write code. I have seen their platform (you can ask for an invite. I got a demo within 12 hours) and believe me, it is actual WYSIWYG that they are providing.
My software team have just started using Jira to manage bugs, so I am fairly new to the process that is available to Jira.
The systems we build are internally facing applications or customer facing web applications, and we release to these environments on a change request by change request basis, rather than through a product lifecycle type of development lifecycle.
The way we plan to use Jira, is for each project (which is usually a single CR) to have its own project created in Jira. Our process is then as follows
Developers code and unit tests, until ready for integration testing
Developers start integration testing and any bugs are raised in Jira, under a version named Development.
Once all development bugs are fixed, we then move into QA, where we hand over the build to the testing team. A new version 'QA' is created, and all bugs found in QA are logged against this verison.
Once all bugs are closed, the project goes Live, and the project is closed in Jira.
From what I have seen of the more agile product type uses of Jira, I suspect we are using the version fields in the wrong way, but as I am new to Jira I am not sure if we are, or if there is a better way of doing it.
Would appreciate hearing from someone who has used Jira in this type of environment to see what the right way to use Jira is.
Here's what I'd recommend after using JIRA in a number of different environments, with varying team sizes and types of project.
Use JIRA projects to denote large but discrete functional areas of work that correspond to a subset of team members in your organization, e.g. a new web application or internal customer app.
If the project or the team working on it is big enough to warrant it, use JIRA components to define different functional areas. You can then assign component leads who will automatically be assigned new issues against their components, and you'll be able to track which functional areas have the most bugs and maybe need more attention from the test team.
For versions, you can certainly set up development, live and QA versions as you've described, but these are more traditionally mapped to the JIRA issue status. With the standard JIRA workflow an issue will be Open while a developer is working on it, Resolved after the feature or bug fix is completed, and then Closed if QA verifies the feature or fix, or Open again if QA identifies a problem.
If you have long-lived applications where you get multiple CRs that specify new features for the same app, I would use JIRA versions to define the different releases of the app, based on a feature set and / or time schedule.
With the approach above you'll be able to track the work of each team or individual developer / tester and know when all issues on an app have been addressed so that you're ready to do into test or deployment. I see you mentioned that you're not using a traditional product lifecycle, but unless your organization is very small and you develop apps that are thrown away after their first version is ready, I think you'll get a lot of benefit from this approach.
So, yes, this is probably 1000th question on the subject. However, my question is somewhat different from others that were asked about this, so please bear with me:
I am looking to develop a single mobile-app that targets the three/four popular and/or growing mobile platforms (Iphone, Android, WinPhone7, RIM). This application is an extension of an existing SaaS system that my startup currently offers. This mobile-app would provide a quick-and-simple way to view up-to-date status & chart & report information for the data that SaaS application collects. Connection to the internet is required 100%. No data entry besides username/password. App is very simple with 5-6 "pages".
In phase 1, all that would need to be supported is for user to log in, get to see current status of his data stored in the cloud, get access to a few live reports
In phase 2, I'd like to be able to offer push-notification of certain key events from my servers in the cloud
My goals are:
1) The back-end processing that generates data for reports is already written in ASP.NET MVC2. I want to re-use it. It can be exposed as either a WCF service or published on a mobile-friendly website
2) I'd like to be able to deploy the patches faster than through the official app-stores/marketplaces.
3) I cannot afford to spend a lot of resources to target three-four proprietary platforms, for an app that is auxiliary to the vertical purpose of the business. I want to develop it once for all 3-4 platforms.
4) I do not have access, nor do I want to purchase a Macbook
5) I do want to deploy thru the vendor-specific application marketplaces
6) I'd like to stay way from proprietary languages/frameworks/lock-ins
Sounds like what I need is a shell around a mobile-friendly site that can be packaged as an app. Are there existing products that can make it REAL EASY for me to do so? Will doing so, preclude me from doing push notifications in phase 2?
Can anyone recommend a "shell" product that would make a wrapper around the website as well as Javascript library that would look the best across all 4 platforms. I've seen the names like Jqtouch, Jquery Mobile, etc... but not sure which ones are better for what I need.
Do I need PhoneGap? I am not 100% sure here. Can PhoneGap use online-only html/javascript pages to translate into native code or must html/javascript files be distributed with the application? I'd rather have the website itself drive the UI completely, as I can keep changing the website without various version approval processes from vendor market-stores.
Thank you for help
I don’t think you need Phonegap after reading about your project goals. You might consider a Web App instead of a native one if you 1) dont want to buy a mac (required for iOS even tho you can compile it in the cloud: https://build.phonegap.com/), and 2) want to apply and deploy updates anytime without going thru those platform independent marketplaces and approval processes.
jQuery Mobile would be an excellent choice, currently (at this very moment) in Alpha 3 but a very stable one and you can deploy your system on any of those platforms. Note that if you focus your efforts in a Web App you can’t target the second phase you mentioned: Push Notifications.
If you decide going Native, then Push Notifications services can be deployed into your Phonegap project once you setup the proper web services and certificates (take a look # http://easyapns.com);
..and one quick note, the idea of phonegap is that all resources (html, js, images. etc) have to be distributed locally within the app and then getting online data (like reports, etc) using JSON from another web service, and that’s another easy task to accomplish. Phonegap DOES NOT compile your HTML files into native code (ObjectiveC or Java), it just load your Web App into a UIWebKit component at run time (in the case of an iOS app)
Another alternative could be using Titanium - http://www.appcelerator.com but this approach is more javascript oriented and your final app looks much more native. (not HTMLs here so I think thats a drawback for you)
Hope it helps :)