0:00:17.080,0:00:18.450
BRAD GESSLER: All right. So, while these are,

0:00:18.540,0:00:20.130
these responses are coming in.

0:00:20.130,0:00:23.350
It looks like quite a few people have

0:00:23.360,0:00:27.010
either handcrafted html and css applications.

0:00:27.010,0:00:30.900
I'm not sure if they're single-page application,

0:00:30.900,0:00:34.170
or just deploy straight-up Rails applications

0:00:34.180,0:00:36.380
or all the logic on the server-side.

0:00:36.400,0:00:39.620
So that's good. I, I hope you'll learn

0:00:39.620,0:00:42.390
something new today about how my company,

0:00:42.390,0:00:43.930
Poll Everywhere, which the,

0:00:43.940,0:00:45.150
the product is what you're seeing.

0:00:45.150,0:00:48.060
We're a software as a service company.

0:00:48.060,0:00:51.520
We just sell this to presenters based on audience[br]size.

0:00:51.520,0:00:56.549
So, I'm gonna fire up the slides here. All

0:00:56.549,0:01:00.941
right. My display settings are working, so[br]this is

0:01:00.941,0:01:05.069
good. All right, so Middleman. The missing[br]view in

0:01:05.069,0:01:07.471
the Rails API stack.

0:01:07.500,0:01:10.440
Let's just jump into it. So, as I said

0:01:10.440,0:01:13.240
before, I am Brad Gessler, CTO and co-founder[br]of

0:01:13.240,0:01:15.760
Poll Everywhere. We started this company about[br]six years

0:01:15.760,0:01:19.240
ago now. So, we were mobile first, whatever[br]that

0:01:19.240,0:01:22.550
meant, SMS. So we went through all the pains

0:01:22.550,0:01:25.850
of having to upgrade, if you will, to the

0:01:25.860,0:01:31.520
second vintage of mobile first, which is mobile,[br]basically

0:01:31.520,0:01:34.230
a mobile website. We had a lot of fun

0:01:34.230,0:01:38.560
doing that and, and learning things the hard[br]way.

0:01:38.560,0:01:41.080
But first, what is middleman? How many of[br]you

0:01:41.080,0:01:43.100
have heard of Jekyll in this room? That seems

0:01:43.100,0:01:46.380
to be the, the predominant static website[br]generator. And

0:01:46.380,0:01:48.470
if you go to the Ruby toolbox and you

0:01:48.470,0:01:50.680
ask Ruby toolbox for, hey, what should I use

0:01:50.680,0:01:52.970
to generate a static website? You're going[br]to get

0:01:52.970,0:01:56.950
Jekyll. But it's, it's not like Jekyll, in[br]the

0:01:56.980,0:01:59.590
sense that it uses a lot of the more

0:01:59.590,0:02:03.090
modern, basically RubyGems inside of what[br]you see in

0:02:03.090,0:02:05.620
Rails 4 and Rails 3, which is, the fact

0:02:05.620,0:02:09.239
that it uses tilt to manage all of the

0:02:09.240,0:02:12.591
template and, and sass and all that good stuff.

0:02:12.600,0:02:14.680
So, if you're looking for a tool to build

0:02:14.680,0:02:16.990
a static site, don't be scared off by the

0:02:16.990,0:02:20.700
fact that middleman is catching up with Jekyll.[br]And

0:02:20.720,0:02:23.640
you should feel a lot better about that after

0:02:23.640,0:02:24.730
this talk.

0:02:24.730,0:02:30.490
So, middleman is extraordinarily well-documented.[br]Thomas Reynolds built middleman.

0:02:30.500,0:02:34.080
He's the, the guy behind this. And he also

0:02:34.080,0:02:35.910
built an amazing website with a lot of great

0:02:35.910,0:02:38.620
documentation behind it. So if you go to,[br]I

0:02:38.620,0:02:42.430
believe it's middlemanapp dot com, you can[br]get a

0:02:42.430,0:02:46.120
sense of, of everything that, that this static[br]site

0:02:46.120,0:02:48.030
generator involves.

0:02:48.040,0:02:51.270
Another really nice thing about this static[br]site generator

0:02:51.280,0:02:54.220
is that it's, it's very modular. So it actually

0:02:54.220,0:02:56.250
uses rack in its gut, so if you understand

0:02:56.250,0:02:58.299
rack, you can write a lot of extensions using

0:02:58.300,0:03:01.661
rack, which is kind of crazy. A static site

0:03:01.680,0:03:04.880
generator using rack to, to do certain things.

0:03:04.880,0:03:08.740
And there's also a, an extension framework,[br]where you

0:03:08.740,0:03:11.530
can roll things out, like, a middleman blog,[br]if

0:03:11.530,0:03:15.030
you so please. So, middleman blog in middleman[br]is

0:03:15.030,0:03:18.860
essentially a, a drop and replacement for[br]Jekyll. With

0:03:18.860,0:03:20.810
a few other things. If you're used to writing

0:03:20.820,0:03:22.949
GitHub-flavored markdown, there's a few tweaks[br]that you have

0:03:22.960,0:03:24.871
to make there to, to get that whole thing

0:03:24.871,0:03:26.520
working.

0:03:26.520,0:03:30.770
So, getting started with middleman is actually[br]very similar

0:03:30.780,0:03:33.680
to what it's like getting started in a Rails

0:03:33.680,0:03:37.810
application. You install the gem, you initialize[br]the application,

0:03:37.810,0:03:40.410
it creates all of this boilerplate code. You[br]can

0:03:40.410,0:03:42.910
see from this directory structure you have[br]your configuration

0:03:42.910,0:03:46.870
file, default index.html.erb. You get a layout[br]file and

0:03:46.880,0:03:49.820
then you have all of your assets. Stylesheets[br]and

0:03:49.820,0:03:53.140
JavaScripts. And then you spin up the server,[br]and

0:03:53.140,0:03:56.290
it boots extremely fast. So, in under a second,

0:03:56.290,0:03:59.569
you can hit this server and things are just

0:03:59.600,0:04:01.541
working.

0:04:01.541,0:04:05.130
So, the thing that I like a lot about

0:04:05.130,0:04:07.510
middleman is that it's very easy to come into

0:04:07.510,0:04:11.100
middleman from Rails. I said earlier that[br]this uses

0:04:11.100,0:04:14.049
tilt, so you can bring all the same gems

0:04:14.049,0:04:17.310
and really the same toolset that you hopefully[br]have

0:04:17.320,0:04:20.219
come to love inside of Rails into middleman[br]and

0:04:20.240,0:04:25.461
start using it without too much of a problem.

0:04:25.461,0:04:27.319
So the other interesting thing about middleman[br]is that

0:04:27.320,0:04:31.380
it's multi-environment aware. This is, I pulled[br]this from

0:04:31.380,0:04:34.711
a default middleman configuration from the[br]boilerplate and simplified

0:04:34.711,0:04:36.510
it a bit. But here you, you get an

0:04:36.510,0:04:39.070
idea that in your development environment,[br]you can put

0:04:39.080,0:04:42.610
extensions in there and activate them. Like[br]live reload.

0:04:42.610,0:04:45.280
And you can pull these extensions off of that

0:04:45.280,0:04:49.950
directory that is on the middleman website.[br]And then

0:04:49.950,0:04:52.620
your production environment in middleman is[br]called your build

0:04:52.640,0:04:53.629
environment.

0:04:53.629,0:04:56.951
So, in there, you're going to activate certain[br]extensions,

0:04:56.960,0:05:01.590
like minifying css, JavaScript, having an[br]asset hash so

0:05:01.590,0:05:04.350
that you can basically hash your assets and[br]do

0:05:04.350,0:05:06.400
what you do in Rails where you, you give

0:05:06.420,0:05:09.520
your asset path a, a hash and a path,

0:05:09.520,0:05:12.330
so that you can cache it.

0:05:12.330,0:05:15.290
So, once you have this configuration setup[br]and your

0:05:15.290,0:05:18.090
webpages and stuff are, are ready to go, you

0:05:18.100,0:05:21.220
have to deploy it somehow. And this is another

0:05:21.240,0:05:24.150
area where middleman really shines is that,[br]deployments are

0:05:24.150,0:05:28.010
incredibly easy. It's two steps easy. There[br]is the

0:05:28.010,0:05:29.940
build command, which takes all of the templates[br]and

0:05:29.940,0:05:33.480
files and whatnot, and it basically compiles[br]a bunch

0:05:33.500,0:05:38.130
of html, css, and JavaScript files into a[br]build

0:05:38.130,0:05:40.870
directory. And then the, the best part about[br]it

0:05:40.870,0:05:42.470
is that getting that build directory up to[br]your

0:05:42.470,0:05:45.389
web server is as simple as rsync. Or, if

0:05:45.400,0:05:47.001
you want to throwback to the days of using

0:05:47.001,0:05:51.520
DreamWeaver, you could use FTP to upload it.[br]Or

0:05:51.520,0:05:54.170
SFTP if you're into the whole security thing.

0:05:54.170,0:05:58.100
I developed a, a gem called shart, appropriately,[br]hoping

0:05:58.100,0:06:00.949
that it would make for an awkward IT conversation

0:06:00.960,0:06:03.781
in some corporate environment, where you can[br]deploy your

0:06:03.781,0:06:06.270
middleman website up to an S3 bucket, and[br]you

0:06:06.280,0:06:08.400
can actually set the headers that are going[br]to

0:06:08.400,0:06:13.540
emitted from that S3 bucket. Mostly caching[br]headers on,

0:06:13.540,0:06:15.050
on certain assets.

0:06:15.050,0:06:16.840
So there's a ton of tools you can use,

0:06:16.860,0:06:19.000
and there's a ton of deployment targets that[br]you

0:06:19.000,0:06:21.120
can choose from for middleman. If you do go

0:06:21.120,0:06:23.180
the route of deploying to S3, it's an incredibly

0:06:23.180,0:06:26.910
cheap way to really run your website. You[br]just

0:06:26.910,0:06:29.040
pay a couple cents a month for a, a

0:06:29.040,0:06:33.150
personal website. And it's also incredibly[br]scalable, whenever you're

0:06:33.160,0:06:35.919
deploying to an S3 endpoint.

0:06:35.920,0:06:40.361
So. Yippie. You have a static website. You[br]know,

0:06:40.361,0:06:42.229
why should you care about middleman? How is[br]this

0:06:42.229,0:06:48.000
going to, to help you scale your application?

0:06:48.000,0:06:49.981
Before I dive into that, it's really important[br]to

0:06:49.981,0:06:54.420
kind of understand the place that middleman[br]will have

0:06:54.420,0:06:58.219
in this spectrum of dynacism, is what I call

0:06:58.220,0:07:00.111
it. And it turns out dynacism is not actually

0:07:00.120,0:07:02.930
a word, so. I had to ignore the, the

0:07:02.930,0:07:04.200
spellchecker on this thing.

0:07:04.200,0:07:08.080
And it looks something like this. So the graph

0:07:08.080,0:07:10.930
that you saw earlier was actually a static[br]web

0:07:10.930,0:07:14.410
application. And if you access PollIt dot[br]com slash

0:07:14.410,0:07:16.919
brad on your smart phone, that was another[br]static

0:07:16.940,0:07:18.220
web application.

0:07:18.220,0:07:22.750
So, that's a very dynamic application, though,[br]in that

0:07:22.750,0:07:25.281
the chart has to move and animate and pull

0:07:25.281,0:07:27.640
this data from the server in real time. In

0:07:27.660,0:07:30.070
under, you know, a second, it has to get

0:07:30.070,0:07:32.490
from all of your phones, whether it comes[br]from

0:07:32.490,0:07:34.679
SMS or your smart phone, we have to get

0:07:34.680,0:07:36.441
it up on that graph in a really short

0:07:36.441,0:07:38.300
amount of time.

0:07:38.300,0:07:42.179
So that is arguably a highly dynamic application.[br]And

0:07:42.180,0:07:44.631
we also have to make things really smooth[br]and

0:07:44.640,0:07:47.779
seem very fluid, because that's just what[br]you have

0:07:47.780,0:07:51.351
to do for presentations like this. So as we

0:07:51.360,0:07:56.770
go down the dynacism spectrum, you have your[br]GUI-oriented

0:07:56.770,0:07:57.510
applications.

0:07:57.510,0:08:00.619
So, Google spreadsheets - you're probably[br]very familiar with

0:08:00.640,0:08:03.091
that. Who hasn't used it? You're doing a lot

0:08:03.091,0:08:05.469
of actions, a lot of very short actions, and

0:08:05.480,0:08:08.920
you don't want to build applications where[br]you click

0:08:08.920,0:08:09.960
a button and then you have to wait for

0:08:09.960,0:08:12.950
a response to come back to a server. The,

0:08:12.950,0:08:15.660
basically the functions of the GUI are very[br]tightly-coupled

0:08:15.660,0:08:18.360
with what comes out of that.

0:08:18.360,0:08:20.860
So we kind of start moving down into document-oriented

0:08:20.860,0:08:23.910
web apps, like an invoicing application or[br]Base Camp

0:08:23.920,0:08:25.879
where you can, you start to get into Rails

0:08:25.880,0:08:28.851
territory, where Rails is, it's kind of the[br]sweet

0:08:28.860,0:08:32.889
spot between these highly dynamic applications[br]or these highly

0:08:32.889,0:08:35.140
static applications.

0:08:35.140,0:08:38.250
So moving down into the blogging platform[br]world, you

0:08:38.250,0:08:41.900
may have something like Subtle or PostHaven,[br]that is

0:08:41.900,0:08:44.231
backed by mySQL, but for the most part it's

0:08:44.240,0:08:48.840
just storing these documents in a database[br]server, just

0:08:48.840,0:08:51.980
for the convenience of administering many[br]users in a

0:08:51.980,0:08:54.430
multi-tendency environment.

0:08:54.440,0:08:56.300
And then you go on down to your personal

0:08:56.300,0:08:57.940
blog, and maybe some of you have a GitHub

0:08:57.940,0:09:01.020
site. Maybe you're using Jekyll for that.[br]Maybe you're

0:09:01.020,0:09:04.980
using middleman. All the way down to informational[br]websites,

0:09:04.980,0:09:07.800
like a mom and pop shop or Steve's plumping

0:09:07.800,0:09:08.410
services.

0:09:08.410,0:09:10.519
If somebody wants to make a killing, go out

0:09:10.520,0:09:13.680
there and sell these restaurants that have[br]flash websites,

0:09:13.700,0:09:16.200
sell them on a middleman website so that we

0:09:16.200,0:09:17.971
can get some html out there and have less

0:09:17.980,0:09:21.839
flash on the internet.

0:09:21.840,0:09:24.751
So, where does middleman kind of fit into[br]all

0:09:24.751,0:09:28.380
of this? If you're working on a green-filled[br]application,

0:09:28.380,0:09:30.810
it's pretty easy to get started right away.[br]Kind

0:09:30.810,0:09:33.410
of what you hear about doing today is, you

0:09:33.420,0:09:36.550
build your single page html application over[br]here and

0:09:36.550,0:09:38.819
you build your smaller kind of API off to

0:09:38.840,0:09:41.051
the side using Sinatra or some type of, of

0:09:41.051,0:09:42.750
microframework.

0:09:42.750,0:09:46.400
But, since we've been around as a company[br]for,

0:09:46.400,0:09:50.270
well, since 2008, we actually started out[br]using Rails

0:09:50.270,0:09:53.610
1 point 2, I believe. It was before REST

0:09:53.640,0:09:57.040
was even a thing in Rails. So we had

0:09:57.040,0:10:00.310
this green-filled application. We spin this[br]thing up. It

0:10:00.310,0:10:01.960
was great. We were able to move pretty fast

0:10:01.960,0:10:05.030
inside of this framework. And we just set[br]up

0:10:05.030,0:10:07.930
this application at polleverywhere dot com.[br]The real time

0:10:07.940,0:10:10.350
components we had, I don't know if anybody[br]remembers

0:10:10.350,0:10:14.059
RJS, but that was basically how we would make

0:10:14.060,0:10:17.051
things appear in, in real time on Rails, was

0:10:17.060,0:10:21.400
through these kind of, in retrospect, horrendous[br]helpers that

0:10:21.420,0:10:24.640
would emit JavaScript from the server and[br]run on

0:10:24.640,0:10:25.830
your web page.

0:10:25.830,0:10:28.190
So, we got a lot of mileage out of

0:10:28.190,0:10:30.490
that. But it wasn't, it wasn't really enough.[br]We

0:10:30.500,0:10:33.380
needed something that was more visually appealing[br]than just

0:10:33.380,0:10:36.710
updating some numbers on a table. So that's[br]when

0:10:36.710,0:10:39.800
we turned to flex, because they happened to[br]have

0:10:39.800,0:10:43.650
this bar chart library that everything updated[br]in real

0:10:43.650,0:10:45.260
time. There was just a lot of stuff that

0:10:45.260,0:10:46.920
worked out of the box.

0:10:46.920,0:10:49.380
And it also just happened, out of sheer dumb

0:10:49.380,0:10:54.290
luck, that flash was installed on 99-some-odd-percent[br]of, just

0:10:54.300,0:10:56.980
all machines out on the internet. But even[br]more

0:10:56.980,0:11:00.300
compelling is that you could embed a flash[br]asset

0:11:00.300,0:11:04.819
into a PowerPoint slide because of good-old[br]ActiveX.

0:11:04.820,0:11:06.911
So we did this kind of weird hack where

0:11:06.920,0:11:10.550
we would embed these swifts that we would[br]generate.

0:11:10.550,0:11:13.189
These Flex applications, and we would actually[br]embed them

0:11:13.189,0:11:15.971
into a PowerPoint slide and send those out[br]up

0:11:15.980,0:11:17.720
on the server so that people could download[br]these

0:11:17.740,0:11:21.930
polls embedded right into PowerPoint slides.[br]So whenever they

0:11:21.930,0:11:24.759
opened it, nothing really had to be loaded[br]up

0:11:24.760,0:11:28.020
over the conference wifi connections in their[br]slide. The

0:11:28.020,0:11:30.330
swift application would just connect out to[br]our Rails

0:11:30.330,0:11:33.581
app and start pulling data out of it.

0:11:33.581,0:11:36.730
So we initially had this flex application[br]in the

0:11:36.730,0:11:41.830
same code repository as we did our Rails application.

0:11:41.860,0:11:44.060
So as we started to build more customers,[br]things

0:11:44.060,0:11:47.180
became more complex, and we were able to afford

0:11:47.180,0:11:49.390
a contractor who came in and just started[br]shredding

0:11:49.390,0:11:50.889
it on this Flex app and really making a

0:11:50.900,0:11:53.900
lot of progress. To the point where we started

0:11:53.900,0:11:57.331
getting annoyed at just how many commit messages[br]that

0:11:57.331,0:11:59.280
he would have in our, I believe it was

0:11:59.280,0:12:02.440
actually SVN at the time. So we broke that

0:12:02.440,0:12:05.269
out into a, a separate application. And we[br]were

0:12:05.269,0:12:08.481
able to move a lot quicker, in the fact

0:12:08.481,0:12:10.069
that we got to separate deployments.

0:12:10.080,0:12:11.981
So, we had this contractor working over here[br]on

0:12:11.981,0:12:13.660
the Flex app, and he was able to deploy

0:12:13.660,0:12:15.880
those Swift assets out to production. And[br]meanwhile the

0:12:15.880,0:12:19.199
Rails app team was able to do their work

0:12:19.200,0:12:21.770
and, kind of, push their updates out through[br]a

0:12:21.780,0:12:24.301
separate release cycle. And, of course, at[br]the time,

0:12:24.301,0:12:27.180
it was a lot easier for Flex to work

0:12:27.180,0:12:30.550
with XML, so we had a very fashionable XML

0:12:30.550,0:12:31.750
API.

0:12:31.750,0:12:35.259
So, time went on, and mobile started to change.

0:12:35.260,0:12:38.621
It wasn't just about SMS anymore. So we had

0:12:38.621,0:12:41.870
to think about the smart phone thing that[br]was,

0:12:41.870,0:12:44.390
that was taking off. Really it was the advent

0:12:44.420,0:12:46.180
of the iPhone.

0:12:46.180,0:12:49.170
So, having a lot of really good luck in

0:12:49.170,0:12:52.600
the past with frameworks, including Rails[br]and, and some

0:12:52.600,0:12:55.230
of the visual components that Flex gave us,[br]naturally

0:12:55.230,0:13:00.240
we gravitated towards using jQuery mobile.[br]And the other

0:13:00.240,0:13:02.559
thing, dot mobe extension, was this thing[br]that I

0:13:02.560,0:13:07.391
saw on RailsCasts about this new-fangled way[br]to kind

0:13:07.400,0:13:09.230
of say, hey, this dot mobe format is gonna

0:13:09.240,0:13:11.560
serve up this, this mobile stuff that's kind[br]of

0:13:11.560,0:13:13.050
like html.

0:13:13.050,0:13:16.790
So, it turned out that was a really bad

0:13:16.790,0:13:20.620
idea. The way that jQuery mobile worked got[br]us

0:13:20.620,0:13:22.620
about 80% of the way there, but the other

0:13:22.620,0:13:26.879
20% was just extraordinarily painful. The[br]jQuery mobile framework

0:13:26.880,0:13:30.901
was extremely opinionated. It wanted data[br]in a certain

0:13:30.901,0:13:32.220
way. It wanted the DOM to be structured a

0:13:32.240,0:13:34.610
certain way. It felt kind of clunky and we

0:13:34.610,0:13:36.650
just felt like we were kind of stuck inside

0:13:36.650,0:13:40.260
of the, the jQuery mobile world.

0:13:40.280,0:13:43.590
So, our team had to, had to do some

0:13:43.600,0:13:46.180
soul searching on this front. And what we[br]decided,

0:13:46.180,0:13:48.880
at the time, was, you know, instead of trying

0:13:48.880,0:13:52.209
to pick a framework, let's actually focus[br]at the

0:13:52.209,0:13:55.101
specific problems that we're trying to solve,[br]and let's

0:13:55.101,0:13:57.540
focus on picking libraries.

0:13:57.540,0:14:00.569
So, that made our thinking a lot more clear,

0:14:00.569,0:14:03.250
and we were able to pick exactly what we

0:14:03.250,0:14:06.821
needed it. Or, yeah, pick exactly what we[br]need,

0:14:06.821,0:14:08.619
and bring it in our application where we needed

0:14:08.620,0:14:09.261
it.

0:14:09.261,0:14:11.320
So, at the time, as well, there was still

0:14:11.340,0:14:14.600
a lot going on in the JavaScript MVC world.

0:14:14.600,0:14:16.829
You had sproutcore was one, was one of the

0:14:16.829,0:14:20.101
frameworks that we looked at. And that was[br]not

0:14:20.101,0:14:23.379
really that good-looking in terms of where[br]we came

0:14:23.400,0:14:25.001
from with jQuery mobile.

0:14:25.001,0:14:28.790
So, we decided to go full speed ahead and

0:14:28.790,0:14:31.730
use backbone.js, which was, I think, at version[br]point

0:14:31.740,0:14:33.380
eight at the time. And we knew that we

0:14:33.380,0:14:35.790
would probably be swapping out libraries,[br]because the space

0:14:35.790,0:14:38.060
was still maturing very rapidly, and there[br]were a

0:14:38.060,0:14:41.030
lot of changes. So this approach really let[br]us

0:14:41.030,0:14:43.809
hand-pick the libraries we need and swap them[br]out

0:14:43.820,0:14:45.941
as something else kind of pulled ahead of,[br]you

0:14:45.941,0:14:48.280
know, another library.

0:14:48.280,0:14:50.740
So we ended up with this single page mobile

0:14:50.740,0:14:53.940
application that we built entirely inside[br]of middleman. So

0:14:53.940,0:14:57.259
middleman was handling all of the assets that,[br]that

0:14:57.260,0:14:59.820
this application was using. And it uses kind[br]of

0:14:59.820,0:15:02.991
the standard sprockets pipeline that, that[br]you have in

0:15:03.000,0:15:05.600
Rails. So whenever you build this thing, we[br]have

0:15:05.600,0:15:08.149
three files. We upload it to our EngineX server,

0:15:08.149,0:15:11.791
and we were pretty happy with how this stuff

0:15:11.800,0:15:15.639
ends up working out on production, especially[br]for deployments.

0:15:15.640,0:15:18.111
So, if you go down this route of building

0:15:18.111,0:15:21.250
these single-page web applications, one thing[br]that you need

0:15:21.260,0:15:25.620
to be very aware of is CORS. So whenever

0:15:25.620,0:15:28.779
you went to the pollit dot com single-page[br]site

0:15:28.780,0:15:32.291
on your phone, that was actually making a[br]AJAX

0:15:32.291,0:15:36.490
request to our polleverywhere dot com host[br]to an

0:15:36.490,0:15:38.530
API endpoint on there.

0:15:38.540,0:15:40.370
So in order to do that without CORS is

0:15:40.380,0:15:43.440
you get all these cross-domain errors for[br]AJAX. But

0:15:43.440,0:15:45.899
what CORS lets you do is, the pollit dot

0:15:45.900,0:15:49.241
com host says, hey, polleverywhere dot com,[br]I'm from

0:15:49.241,0:15:51.560
a different domain. I want to make these types

0:15:51.560,0:15:55.399
of HTTP requests. A GET request, a POST request,

0:15:55.400,0:15:57.520
and, oh, by the way, I want access to

0:15:57.520,0:16:00.171
these headers. So our polleverywhere dot com[br]service says,

0:16:00.171,0:16:02.530
OK, you're on our whitelist, polleverywhere[br]dot com, so

0:16:02.540,0:16:05.360
here you go. Here's the data. Great. You want

0:16:05.360,0:16:08.940
to POST something. I'll accept that request.[br]And if

0:16:08.940,0:16:12.820
another domain tried to access it, it would[br]just

0:16:12.820,0:16:15.480
give them the cross-domain error.

0:16:15.480,0:16:17.399
So that's how we, we got around that issue.

0:16:17.400,0:16:20.541
And then another really great thing about[br]the way

0:16:20.541,0:16:22.959
that we deploy this mobile app is, it's really

0:16:22.960,0:16:26.411
easy to deploy this to a CDN. You actually

0:16:26.411,0:16:29.449
have these assets that you can push out to

0:16:29.460,0:16:32.770
other servers. So you can't really do that[br]with

0:16:32.770,0:16:34.890
a Rails app, per se. You can't just take

0:16:34.890,0:16:37.111
it and stick it over here on this file

0:16:37.120,0:16:39.610
system on this server without having to boot[br]a

0:16:39.620,0:16:43.600
bunch of stuff and go through all that.

0:16:43.600,0:16:47.250
So another interesting kind of feature of[br]that is

0:16:47.250,0:16:49.769
that you can deploy to floppy discs. So when's

0:16:49.769,0:16:54.320
the last time that anybody's seen one of these?

0:16:54.340,0:16:56.431
And we have these readers here. You pick these

0:16:56.431,0:16:59.400
up for about fifteen bucks off of Amazon.[br]And

0:16:59.400,0:17:01.180
what I'm actually going to do is a live

0:17:01.180,0:17:05.119
hardware demo. Possibly the only one at RailsConf.[br]And

0:17:05.119,0:17:09.829
let's plug this in. The really surprising[br]thing, to

0:17:09.829,0:17:15.732
me, was that Mac OS actually recognizes floppy[br]drives.

0:17:15.740,0:17:21.689
So let's plug this guy in here. Op.

0:17:21.920,0:17:28.920
Devices. I think that's devices. Oh, I got[br]to

0:17:32.520,0:17:39.520
put the disc in. All right. So you can

0:17:44.640,0:17:50.181
hear the, hear the disc spinning. Oh, let's[br]see.

0:17:50.200,0:17:54.489
There it is. Boy, that's hard to see up

0:17:54.489,0:17:58.490
here. All right. So here's the application.[br]We'll just

0:17:58.490,0:18:03.410
launch this.

0:18:03.410,0:18:09.719
[laughter]

0:18:11.620,0:18:15.000
So hopefully your network connection is faster[br]than a,

0:18:15.020,0:18:18.150
a floppy disc, but if you have a customer

0:18:18.150,0:18:20.370
living somewhere remote and the only way to[br]get

0:18:20.370,0:18:22.720
something to them is by Pony Express, you[br]can

0:18:22.740,0:18:26.000
just put this floppy disc in a satchel and,

0:18:26.000,0:18:29.071
and send the pony on its way.

0:18:29.071,0:18:31.769
The really fun thing is opening network inspector[br]on

0:18:31.769,0:18:35.030
this and seeing how Chrome measures this.[br]Is it

0:18:35.040,0:18:37.410
latency, or is the file really taking that[br]long

0:18:37.420,0:18:38.170
to load?

0:18:38.170,0:18:41.311
So, here you go. You just saw a web

0:18:41.320,0:18:46.460
application booted from a floppy disc. I can[br]go

0:18:46.460,0:18:53.460
to my pollev page and submit a vote. So,

0:18:54.620,0:18:58.270
we joke about coming up with a floppy.js library,

0:18:58.270,0:19:00.550
because if you can see the inspector down[br]there,

0:19:00.550,0:19:02.860
I don't know if it shows, but the retina

0:19:02.880,0:19:04.990
assets aren't loaded. Those were too big to[br]fit

0:19:04.990,0:19:07.561
on this floppy disc, so we came up with

0:19:07.561,0:19:11.099
some fun ideas to span our JavaScript across[br]floppy

0:19:11.100,0:19:14.370
discs. But we had better things to do like

0:19:14.370,0:19:16.790
fix bugs in production.

0:19:16.790,0:19:21.171
So, great. You can put this on floppy discs.

0:19:21.200,0:19:22.809
But I think more importantly there is, you[br]can

0:19:22.809,0:19:25.770
put them inside of phone gap or Cordova apps

0:19:25.770,0:19:27.451
or we have some customers that they want to

0:19:27.460,0:19:30.789
bundle our voting application with one of[br]their mobile

0:19:30.800,0:19:33.081
applications. So we can say, here is our html

0:19:33.081,0:19:35.899
assets, you can put them within your application,[br]and

0:19:35.900,0:19:38.020
then whenever there's three-hundred people[br]sitting in a conference

0:19:38.020,0:19:44.030
room, it won't overload the wifi.

0:19:44.030,0:19:47.420
So, caching aside, there's, there's another[br]component to this.

0:19:47.420,0:19:51.170
Flex, Flex started getting old. It started[br]getting outdated.

0:19:51.180,0:19:53.040
The writing was on the wall that this stuff

0:19:53.040,0:19:55.760
was going to die. So, you know, we set

0:19:55.760,0:19:57.471
out to write a utilization app, it was very

0:19:57.471,0:19:59.700
natural for us to think, oh, you know what,

0:19:59.700,0:20:01.820
let's use middleman. We want this thing to[br]work

0:20:01.820,0:20:05.190
on tablets, iPhones, and everywhere, so naturally[br]we're going

0:20:05.190,0:20:06.550
to use - oh, what do we call it

0:20:06.550,0:20:08.529
today? HTML5. Let's use that.

0:20:08.560,0:20:11.890
Let's use that HTML5 thing to talk to our

0:20:11.890,0:20:15.441
JSON API. And that worked great. We got this

0:20:15.441,0:20:19.139
application out there. It's actually what[br]you saw today,

0:20:19.140,0:20:21.500
it's that HTML5 application. We have all the[br]benefits

0:20:21.500,0:20:24.840
of caching and the CDN and whatnot. But, but

0:20:24.840,0:20:27.790
something came up. Whenever we were looking[br]at these

0:20:27.790,0:20:30.931
visualizations day in and day out, we just[br]said,

0:20:30.940,0:20:33.369
jeez, these feel really slow, because we were[br]using

0:20:33.369,0:20:35.230
short polling. We were hitting our server[br]once every

0:20:35.230,0:20:38.030
couple of seconds to get the new data from

0:20:38.060,0:20:41.520
our server to, to update on the graph.

0:20:41.520,0:20:42.880
So we decided we wanted to do better than

0:20:42.880,0:20:46.390
that. We rolled out a Stream API. We actually

0:20:46.390,0:20:48.831
wrote our own server at the time, because[br]socket

0:20:48.840,0:20:51.440
io wasn't quite what we wanted. I, I actually

0:20:51.440,0:20:54.950
gave a talk in 2012 about this, about streaming

0:20:54.950,0:20:58.060
resources. So we threw up that streaming API[br]server,

0:20:58.060,0:20:59.560
but there were some problems with it.

0:20:59.560,0:21:02.509
Back in 2012, when I gave that talk, we

0:21:02.520,0:21:06.191
were using AMQP on the backend of this thing.

0:21:06.191,0:21:08.159
And there were just a lot of stability issues

0:21:08.160,0:21:10.211
with that. It wasn't quite working with the,[br]with

0:21:10.220,0:21:13.190
the grain of the web and how resources work

0:21:13.190,0:21:15.789
and, and how caching and all that stuff works.

0:21:15.789,0:21:19.171
So, we had these stability issues that we[br]were

0:21:19.180,0:21:22.119
trying to deal with, and what was really nice

0:21:22.120,0:21:25.000
about having these client-side applications,[br]is we were able

0:21:25.000,0:21:27.431
to spit up our stream server on its own

0:21:27.440,0:21:30.779
host, its own completely different host, and[br]isolate it.

0:21:30.780,0:21:32.081
Our team had a lot of learning to do

0:21:32.081,0:21:35.149
to understand how to, not only build these[br]real

0:21:35.149,0:21:37.590
time web applications, how to operate them.[br]How to

0:21:37.590,0:21:38.830
scale them.

0:21:38.830,0:21:41.360
So whenever we rolled this thing out, we'd[br]have

0:21:41.360,0:21:45.181
crashes, and our client-side application was[br]able to seamlessly,

0:21:45.181,0:21:49.829
basically fail over to HTTP short polling.[br]So over

0:21:49.860,0:21:52.260
time, our team got much better at just kind

0:21:52.260,0:21:58.560
of managing all these pieces. And we had client-side

0:21:58.560,0:22:02.100
SOA going on there. So, you can also, with

0:22:02.100,0:22:04.170
CORS, if there's several APIs that you have[br]out

0:22:04.170,0:22:08.170
there, you can consume those from your JavaScript[br]and

0:22:08.170,0:22:11.210
kind of munch all that stuff together client[br]side

0:22:11.210,0:22:13.561
and just do whatever it is that you please

0:22:13.561,0:22:15.119
with that data.

0:22:15.140,0:22:18.590
So, we had so much success with all these

0:22:18.590,0:22:22.571
middleman, these single-page middleman applications,[br]that we started to

0:22:22.580,0:22:25.029
build all of our other applications in these.[br]So

0:22:25.029,0:22:28.490
our approach towards native integrations has[br]been, basically, let's

0:22:28.490,0:22:31.390
build a special web browser that has these[br]certain

0:22:31.420,0:22:34.480
hooks into JavaScript so that our web developers[br]can,

0:22:34.480,0:22:39.091
can be more productive and interact more with[br]basically

0:22:39.091,0:22:40.879
the native application.

0:22:40.880,0:22:43.290
So we can control a lot of different things

0:22:43.300,0:22:47.290
with these integrations from JavaScript. So[br]we start having

0:22:47.290,0:22:50.880
all these backbone applications pop up. Now,[br]if you've

0:22:50.880,0:22:54.260
dealt with several applications, you may be[br]thinking, jeez,

0:22:54.260,0:22:57.081
you know, you're probably repeating yourself[br]with a lot

0:22:57.081,0:22:58.739
of different things. So how do you get a

0:22:58.740,0:23:02.850
handle on this stuff in this world of sprockets

0:23:02.850,0:23:04.980
and middleman?

0:23:04.980,0:23:06.910
So what we did is we took all of

0:23:06.920,0:23:09.711
kind of the common components of this, the[br]session

0:23:09.720,0:23:13.269
components, the models and backbone. We pulled[br]all these

0:23:13.269,0:23:17.561
into this one asset gem that then everything[br]consumes

0:23:17.561,0:23:21.180
from there. So to make those gems, it's just

0:23:21.180,0:23:24.889
like making any other gem. You just say bundler

0:23:24.889,0:23:26.870
gem and then whatever the name is of your

0:23:26.870,0:23:30.070
gem. Here we have pollitassets. And the kind[br]of

0:23:30.080,0:23:32.510
different thing about this gem is that, you[br]check

0:23:32.520,0:23:34.250
is sprockets is there. And if it is, then

0:23:34.250,0:23:37.150
you start appending all these paths toward[br]the assets

0:23:37.150,0:23:38.210
where your asset gem lives.

0:23:38.220,0:23:42.821
So, for example, in our lib/assets JavaScripts[br]gem, we

0:23:42.840,0:23:46.070
have a user backbone model. We have a poll

0:23:46.070,0:23:50.690
backbone model. The stylesheets. We actually[br]use font icons

0:23:50.700,0:23:53.289
everywhere, so that we can fit all this stuff

0:23:53.289,0:23:55.500
on a floppy drive.

0:23:55.500,0:23:59.040
So, we can have all these assets located here,

0:23:59.040,0:24:01.970
which whenever all the other applications[br]consume that, they

0:24:01.970,0:24:04.220
can have a consistent look and feel that uses

0:24:04.220,0:24:06.311
kind of the visual language that we want to

0:24:06.320,0:24:09.349
use throughout all of our applications and[br]all the

0:24:09.349,0:24:11.010
different platforms.

0:24:11.010,0:24:13.480
And of course you have your vendor JavaScript[br]assets.

0:24:13.500,0:24:15.990
So if you have four different projects out[br]there,

0:24:15.990,0:24:18.681
you're probably using four different versions[br]of jQuery. This

0:24:18.681,0:24:20.519
lets us use one version of jQuery and one

0:24:20.520,0:24:23.830
version of backbone.

0:24:23.830,0:24:26.700
The way that we manage these in our development

0:24:26.700,0:24:30.140
environment is just through bundler. So you[br]can imagine

0:24:30.140,0:24:32.580
if you have one version of jQuery, well what

0:24:32.580,0:24:35.000
happens whenever you bump from the one dot[br]x

0:24:35.020,0:24:36.750
to two dot x? You're probably gonna break[br]a

0:24:36.750,0:24:39.500
lot of stuff.

0:24:39.520,0:24:42.150
But we actually don't have that problem, because[br]like

0:24:42.150,0:24:44.691
with RubyGems, you don't really care if there's[br]an

0:24:44.700,0:24:47.359
upgrade happening. What you care about is[br]that you're

0:24:47.360,0:24:50.560
getting the version that you asked for in[br]your

0:24:50.560,0:24:55.600
gem bundle. So we're able to control that[br]by

0:24:55.600,0:24:59.670
pushing our pollev assets up to a basic Git

0:24:59.670,0:25:02.730
repository, and we reference that from this[br]gemfile. You

0:25:02.730,0:25:04.870
don't actually see the, the git reference[br]in there,

0:25:04.880,0:25:07.201
but you can see that, in this case, we're

0:25:07.201,0:25:09.320
saying, hey, I want to use the new feature

0:25:09.320,0:25:13.669
branch of pollev assets. The assets path thing[br]above

0:25:13.669,0:25:17.051
that is a nice little hack so that if

0:25:17.060,0:25:22.109
you're making changes to the pollev assets[br]project, you

0:25:22.109,0:25:23.790
can pull those locally so that you don't have

0:25:23.790,0:25:26.020
to run bundle update every time.

0:25:26.040,0:25:28.360
And what's cool about middleman is, if you're[br]developing

0:25:28.360,0:25:31.530
these pollev assets locally, whenever you[br]reload middleman, it

0:25:31.530,0:25:35.171
actually picks up the changes from the, the[br]assets

0:25:35.180,0:25:37.529
gem. You don't have to reboot the server or

0:25:37.540,0:25:40.211
do anything crazy like that.

0:25:40.211,0:25:44.249
So, the way that we can build new features

0:25:44.249,0:25:46.580
now, let's say that, let's say the worst case

0:25:46.580,0:25:48.380
scenario, I have to build a new API to

0:25:48.400,0:25:52.020
support a new feature. I can branch my Rails

0:25:52.020,0:25:54.260
app project, and I can say, hey, branch this

0:25:54.260,0:25:57.850
off. It's called new feature. I'm gonna add[br]some

0:25:57.850,0:25:59.510
kind of new visualization to it that needs[br]a

0:25:59.510,0:26:01.880
new API. So I can build that API out

0:26:01.900,0:26:04.240
on my server. I can develop that locally.[br]And

0:26:04.240,0:26:07.510
I can point my middleman project at my local

0:26:07.510,0:26:08.540
server.

0:26:08.540,0:26:09.831
And I can branch it in here and I

0:26:09.840,0:26:12.559
can branch pollev assets, and basically have[br]three different

0:26:12.560,0:26:16.071
branches or, sorry, one branch and three different[br]repos,

0:26:16.071,0:26:18.560
all working on the same feature. And then[br]whenever

0:26:18.560,0:26:22.989
I go to deploy, obviously deploy the API server

0:26:22.989,0:26:25.780
functionality first, and then it would go[br]on to

0:26:25.800,0:26:29.000
roll out these middleman single page websites.

0:26:29.000,0:26:34.060
So, does it work? I think so. It's, it's

0:26:34.060,0:26:37.029
worked really well for us. We have to deal

0:26:37.029,0:26:40.990
with some weird kind of bandwidth constrained[br]environments, where

0:26:41.000,0:26:46.181
you can't trust conference wifi connections.[br]And it also,

0:26:46.181,0:26:48.080
I realized that it worked really well for[br]us

0:26:48.080,0:26:51.889
when, about two months ago, Microsoft wanted[br]to launch

0:26:51.889,0:26:58.600
their PowerPoint 2013 store inside of the[br]Microsoft Office

0:26:58.600,0:27:00.470
Applications. They actually have an app store[br]inside of

0:27:00.480,0:27:02.720
there. And we were able to pull a bunch

0:27:02.720,0:27:06.240
of assets from our mobile application into[br]our sprockets

0:27:06.240,0:27:09.550
asset gem and reuse all of that stuff, most

0:27:09.550,0:27:12.650
of it, in the PowerPoint 2013 app. And then

0:27:12.660,0:27:15.880
we were able to quickly make some customizations[br]to

0:27:15.880,0:27:17.610
that whole user experience to make it fit[br]in

0:27:17.610,0:27:20.330
with Office 2013 a little bit better.

0:27:20.340,0:27:22.920
And, of course, whenever you're running a[br]single-page JavaScript

0:27:22.920,0:27:26.730
application inside of this little web iframe,[br]essentially in

0:27:26.730,0:27:30.960
Office, it feels very close. It feels very[br]native.

0:27:30.960,0:27:32.469
So that, that worked pretty well for us. But

0:27:32.469,0:27:35.920
I think, even better than that, than reusing[br]functionality

0:27:35.920,0:27:38.990
is, inevitably, whenever you work on some[br]of these

0:27:38.990,0:27:41.000
projects, you make some kind of improvement.[br]Something just

0:27:41.020,0:27:44.230
feels better about maybe handling a login[br]or some

0:27:44.230,0:27:46.240
kind of status code or something.

0:27:46.240,0:27:48.571
So these improvements that we make in these[br]individual

0:27:48.580,0:27:50.830
projects, we're able to pull them back into[br]the

0:27:50.830,0:27:53.549
sprockets assets gem and then push them back[br]out

0:27:53.560,0:27:55.441
to all of our other projects. So all these

0:27:55.441,0:27:58.019
other projects you see up here benefit from[br]the

0:27:58.020,0:28:02.660
PowerPoint 2013 app, and that just keep, kind[br]of

0:28:02.660,0:28:04.360
reinforces itself. Reinforcing itself.

0:28:04.360,0:28:07.590
So, in a sense, the sprockets assets gem turns

0:28:07.590,0:28:11.150
into this little, perfect little framework[br]for your organization

0:28:11.150,0:28:14.421
that's extracted in the right way, where it's[br]being

0:28:14.421,0:28:17.279
extracted from stuff that's actually being[br]used and being

0:28:17.300,0:28:21.760
proven as successful by customers.

0:28:21.760,0:28:26.441
So, that's a pretty good overview of one of

0:28:26.441,0:28:29.849
the more complex middleman deployments I would[br]say is

0:28:29.849,0:28:33.090
out there, and just managing kind of multiple[br]projects.

0:28:33.100,0:28:36.310
One of the downsides and also plus sides of

0:28:36.310,0:28:40.870
middleman is that there's no out-of-the-box[br]JavaScript MVC app

0:28:40.870,0:28:44.790
solution in there. So in the case of backbone,

0:28:44.790,0:28:46.890
it's up to you to organize all the assets

0:28:46.900,0:28:49.710
in some way that, that makes sense. And different

0:28:49.720,0:28:52.520
JavaScript frameworks have, some are more[br]organized than others.

0:28:52.520,0:28:56.220
So that's both a blessing and a curse.

0:28:56.220,0:28:58.670
It worked out for us because there really[br]wasn't

0:28:58.680,0:28:59.840
a framework. We kind of came up with our

0:28:59.840,0:29:01.480
own and we didn't have to deal with, with

0:29:01.480,0:29:04.711
somebody else's bad framework.

0:29:04.711,0:29:08.909
So, that was the overview of the highly dynamic

0:29:08.909,0:29:11.191
website, which has all these static

0:29:11.200,0:29:13.959
applications stashed everywhere.

0:29:13.960,0:29:17.990
What about static websites? The other side[br]of the

0:29:17.990,0:29:21.280
kind of token where Rails fills the middle[br]ground?

0:29:21.280,0:29:25.700
So, we're developing a lot of content for,[br]for

0:29:25.720,0:29:29.610
our website. There's an explosion of use cases[br]and

0:29:29.610,0:29:32.561
all sorts of stuff that we have to implement.

0:29:32.561,0:29:34.500
So one thing that we'll probably do on this

0:29:34.500,0:29:39.360
front is extract out a content directory from[br]Rails

0:29:39.360,0:29:42.321
app. How many of you have a, in your

0:29:42.321,0:29:44.200
Rails app, it starts out. You have kind of

0:29:44.200,0:29:46.330
the home page, and then it turns into this

0:29:46.330,0:29:48.649
directory called content, and then you have[br]all these

0:29:48.649,0:29:50.990
content pages. Maybe you end up with twenty[br]or

0:29:51.000,0:29:53.000
thirty of them one day and, before you notice

0:29:53.000,0:29:55.670
this big junk drawer of content, and you have

0:29:55.670,0:29:56.870
to look in your routes file and kind of

0:29:56.870,0:29:58.480
make sense of all this stuff.

0:29:58.480,0:30:02.870
So, in middleman, you don't, the directory[br]structure is

0:30:02.880,0:30:05.460
the routing structure. So that stuff checks[br]out a

0:30:05.460,0:30:07.520
lot nicer. And it's just much easier to handle

0:30:07.540,0:30:11.060
this content. And there's also much better[br]support in

0:30:11.060,0:30:14.340
there for different things like image compression.[br]You can

0:30:14.340,0:30:18.441
png crush everything. So if you have designers[br]building

0:30:18.441,0:30:21.419
image assets and they don't understand the[br]technicalities of

0:30:21.420,0:30:24.660
making pngs much smaller, middleman can take[br]care of

0:30:24.660,0:30:26.400
that in its asset pipeline.

0:30:26.400,0:30:30.970
And, of course, on a static website like that,

0:30:30.970,0:30:34.420
you still have some dynamic components. You[br]can't just

0:30:34.420,0:30:37.451
throw a static website out there and just[br]tell

0:30:37.460,0:30:40.979
everybody, like, oh, no, forget about login[br]state. There's

0:30:40.980,0:30:42.880
some common things that people want to see,[br]so

0:30:42.880,0:30:45.211
you can take care of that with JavaScript,[br]and

0:30:45.220,0:30:46.729
you can run all that stuff client-side.

0:30:46.729,0:30:49.100
So you can have some really lightweight JS[br]that

0:30:49.100,0:30:50.600
checks with the server. Maybe it checks for[br]the

0:30:50.600,0:30:53.760
presence of a cookie to see if, if the

0:30:53.760,0:30:56.110
user's logged in or not. And then, of course,

0:30:56.120,0:30:57.790
if you have a contact us form or anything

0:30:57.790,0:31:02.020
like that, you would test these integration[br]points with

0:31:02.020,0:31:04.300
Rails so that whenever somebody types in stuff[br]into

0:31:04.300,0:31:06.170
a form and submits it, it hits your Rails

0:31:06.180,0:31:07.810
app and hopefully it doesn't blow up.

0:31:07.810,0:31:10.600
And, of course, you have other JavaScript[br]applications, like

0:31:10.600,0:31:13.490
Google Analytics, Optimize the Stripe.

0:31:13.500,0:31:14.910
All these little JavaScript-y

0:31:14.910,0:31:18.780
tools that you can throw in there. And, you

0:31:18.800,0:31:21.470
know, it makes it a little more dynamic.

0:31:21.470,0:31:23.160
So the nice thing about a static website is

0:31:23.160,0:31:26.691
that you can't get taken down that easily,[br]especially

0:31:26.700,0:31:28.269
if you have this stuff up in an S3

0:31:28.269,0:31:31.490
bucket or stashed in CDNs. I was at a

0:31:31.490,0:31:33.200
middleman meet up about a year ago, and the

0:31:33.220,0:31:35.880
folks from nest dot com were there. And they

0:31:35.880,0:31:38.360
said they were using some CNS or some, some

0:31:38.360,0:31:40.870
dynamic backend, and they kept being mentioned[br]in the

0:31:40.870,0:31:43.970
press. And their website kept getting really[br]slow.

0:31:43.980,0:31:45.780
So they looked at a few things and I

0:31:45.780,0:31:48.310
think one option involved just throwing hardware[br]at the

0:31:48.310,0:31:51.340
problem. And they decided that wasn't sane.[br]Let's just

0:31:51.340,0:31:54.040
build a static website with middleman and[br]push this

0:31:54.040,0:31:56.480
stuff out there on a really simple server.[br]And

0:31:56.480,0:31:58.640
they no longer had any of these problems where

0:31:58.640,0:32:00.340
their site would get taken down from a, an

0:32:00.340,0:32:04.270
influx of, of traffic.

0:32:04.270,0:32:06.510
So there's a lot of things to think about

0:32:06.520,0:32:09.830
whenever you're building these middleman applications.

0:32:09.840,0:32:10.480
I could probably

0:32:10.480,0:32:12.480
give another two or three talks just on these

0:32:12.480,0:32:15.650
items alone. If you want, ask me questions[br]about

0:32:15.650,0:32:19.170
this stuff later. But I don't have time to

0:32:19.170,0:32:20.440
cover that now.

0:32:20.440,0:32:22.950
And, of course, I encourage you to get out

0:32:22.950,0:32:25.680
there. Build your next website with middleman,[br]even if

0:32:25.700,0:32:28.160
it's a personal website or a blog or something.

0:32:28.160,0:32:31.840
Try it out. If you're working on single web

0:32:31.840,0:32:34.660
page applications, you could take your handcrafted[br]stuff and

0:32:34.660,0:32:36.691
throw it into middleman and start using that.[br]Start

0:32:36.700,0:32:38.759
using the asset pipeline.

0:32:38.760,0:32:41.400
A lot of these ideas that I've talked about

0:32:41.400,0:32:43.571
today, and some of the things I didn't talk

0:32:43.571,0:32:45.849
about, our company polleverything is

0:32:45.860,0:32:47.191
actually abstracting out this

0:32:47.191,0:32:50.529
framework and we're going to be releasing[br]these bits

0:32:50.540,0:32:53.770
into gitfannypack, or fannypack is gonna be[br]the name

0:32:53.770,0:32:56.540
of this, this kind of framework that uses[br]middleman

0:32:56.540,0:32:59.240
and deals with stuff like testing, binding[br]to different

0:32:59.240,0:33:01.941
environments and all that stuff.

0:33:01.941,0:33:04.449
And, of course, if you want to work on

0:33:04.460,0:33:06.470
this stuff every day and get paid for it,

0:33:06.470,0:33:12.150
you can join at team at polleverywhere. So,[br]that's

0:33:12.160,0:33:15.900
my talk. I'm Brad Gessler. I'll be posting[br]slides,

0:33:15.900,0:33:19.390
links, and, and code, up on Twitter whenever[br]I'm

0:33:19.390,0:33:22.280
not working on these slides. Thanks.