One of the perks of working in the same place for the last 10 years is that I got to see how our stack evolved.
| Technologies | 2010 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend | HTML CSS JavaScript jQuery |
HTML5 Sass ReactJS Gatsby |
| Backend | Apache 2.0 PHP 5.3 MySQL 5.1 |
Nginx Node.js MongoDB |
| Infrastructure | Servers in our office |
Amazon Web Services Google Cloud Services |
| Automated Testing | Selenium WebDriver | Endtest |
| Analytics | Google Analytics |
FullStory Amplitude Segment |
In the spotlight:
1. Gatsby ❤️
Gatsby renders your React views to static HTML files that get sent to the client, making the site usable even with JavaScript disabled.
This means that the client does not have to do the heavy lifting of building the site with JavaScript.
This improves SEO and performance, since the site can be rendered much faster on initial load.
2. Endtest ❤️
Endtest allows us to create automated tests in a few minutes and execute them on their cross-browser cloud, without even having to write any code.
It enables us to execute tests on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Internet Explorer and mobile browsers.
We have a set of regression tests which are running multiple times each day, giving us the confidence that we're the first ones to find out when something breaks.
3. FullStory ❤️
FullStory records the sessions of our users and allows us to see the replays.
This helps us in discovering potential UX issues before they cost us.
There has been a constant debate if using session recorders is ethical.
We do show it in our list of Subprocessors.
Final thoughts
The overall trend has evolved towards lifting some of the weight off our shoulders.
What about your stack? How has it changed over time?
Top comments (20)
Hadn't heard of endtest will have to take a look.
However in the front end I think JavaScript should also be on the 2020 side(or ES6). Unless you are doing Typescript. Mostly for more Junior developer it seems to them that react as the language and like in the old days people said they coded in jQuery
He is referring to his company's stack.
how did NGINX replace PHP, did not get this part ?
NGINX replaced Apache.
Node.js replaced PHP.
Sorry for the confusion.
Makes more sense now 👍
First things first, who is 'our'?
Second why NGINX and not express or something, what benefits does NGINX has over nodejs web servers?
Nginx is considered a Web Server and Express is considered a Web Application Framework. It's apples to apples I think.
If you want to develop an API, Nginx would not be your first choice. If you wanted to serve a static website, Nginx might be your first choice.
Is Nginx the go-to when trying to scale your web server?
We're a mid-size company who develops digital solutions for the Banking and Financial industries.
Regarding NGINX, from what I remember, we wanted to work with Node.js and we did some research and NGINX was the most popular option for Node.js back then.
If you have any arguments that would suggest a different option is better, I would love to hear them.
I'm always open to such discussions.
I would say Android development has been changing from Java to Kotlin. Also back-end development since we already have support for Kotlin in the Spring framework
Interesting. Thank you for your reply.
Personally, I'm not familiar with Android, I thought that it wasn't possible with anything else besides Java.
Glad I learned something new.
Pretty cool! What made you guys switch from SQL to NoSQL MongoDB?
Out of the whole article this was the change I was most shocked at. Cue 5 years from now when they realize Mongo isn't what they expect
Why did you chose Gatsby over Next.js?
Several reasons, but mostly because we wanted to generate the HTML/CSS/JS at build time.
Next.js can do that too now.
It looks garbage start to finish.
Is that what server side rendering is?
Gatsby is traditionally a "static site generator" (SSG), it's a bit different than "server side rendering" (SSR), although in the newest versions of Gatsby (4+) they have added SSR and even a new "Deferred Static Generation" (DSG) publishing type.
SSR is about on-demand rendering, so the first time the page is requested it gets rendered server-side and caches the rendered copy for a faster delivery on subsequent requests.
SSG everything is generated at build time, so even the first request for a page is ultra fast.
One appeal of SSR over SSG is that it allows pages to be more dynamic and update more frequently.
How is FullStory helpfull, what issues can it find?
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