Okay, so I gotta tell you about this thing I did with J.J. Roberts. First off, who’s J.J. Roberts, right? I kept seeing this name, and it turns out it’s this artist, also goes by Jay Roberts or LJ Roberts, born in 1980, does these huge textile things, embroidery, artist books, the whole shebang.
So, I got this idea. I wanted to mess around with some new tech stuff in an e-commerce app. I was reading about how everyone wants faster releases and all that. This is where LaunchDarkly’s JavaScript SDK comes in. I figured I’d use it to roll out new features without making a big mess.
Here’s what I did: I took this “Tour of Heroes” app (I’m gonna call it TOH because, you know, it’s easier), and I started playing around with it. I was trying to figure out how to add new stuff without breaking everything. LaunchDarkly helps with this, you can turn features on and off like a light switch. Neat, huh?
- First, I installed the LaunchDarkly SDK. It was pretty straightforward, just followed the instructions on their site.
- Then, I created a feature flag in LaunchDarkly. Think of it as a remote control for your code.
- Next, I wrapped the new feature in my TOH app with this flag. This way, I could turn it on or off from LaunchDarkly’s dashboard.
- After that, I tested it out. Turned the feature on for myself, made sure it worked, then turned it off again.
Now, while I was doing all this, I also wanted to keep an eye on how users were interacting with the app. That’s where Datadog’s Real User Monitoring (RUM) comes into play. It’s like having a spy in your app, but in a good way. It tells you what real users are doing, where they’re clicking, and if anything’s going wrong.
I also dug into some other stuff, like binary format and CodePlex. Sounds boring, but it’s actually pretty interesting when you get into it. And guess what? Turns out a lot of developers are into this framework called Svelte. I might check that out later.
The Outcome
So, what did I get out of all this? Well, I learned how to use LaunchDarkly to safely roll out new features, and I got a taste of how Datadog RUM can help me keep an eye on things. Plus, I got to play around with some cool tech and learn some new stuff along the way. Not bad for a day’s work, right? This whole experience made me feel like I was back in the good old days of coding, just experimenting and having fun.
