Great, impressive work, Esteban, thanks for sharing. I wish you luck in completing your pilot.
Let us known if you need help in critical areas. Sven On 04 Jan 2014, at 20:16, Esteban A. Maringolo <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > After one year of negotiations (demos, quotes, etc.) and a couple of > months of development, by the end of December we released a pilot > version of our pharo based solution. > The solution consists of a native mobile app (Android), with Pharo 2.0 > servers, using Seaside for the web UI, Seaside-REST for the mobile app > API and Zinc Websockets to certain "live" features of the web. The > persistence is GLORP using the native PostgreSQL driver. > > I can't disclose much more about the customer or the solution yet, it > is a private solution for a multinational consumer goods company > operating in Argentina. > > But I can comment on the numbers: > * The pilot will end in ~40 days > * It involves 50 mobile users of the Android app using it daily. > * An nginx frontend for static files and http proxying to the pharo app > servers > * Two pharo images as servers, one for the web interface, and one for > the REST API. The image is the same, they work as two separate app > servers to make use of each server and for improved reliability (I > don't want the seaside failures, which has been none yet, to affect > the REST API). > * Everything running in DigitalOcean droplets based in NYC (they add > ~180ms of latency from here but their price/value equations is > unmatched). > > Some performance numbers: > * The Pharo server uptime has been no less than perfect, the first 10 > days with uninterrupted uptime. Only shutdown to upgrade the image > (yesterday night). > * The load is minor, with peaks of ~30 concurrent mobile users during > a few "business" moments of the day, the server never passed 15% of > CPU use. The disk I/O is also small, but the database is small too > (growing daily). > > If the pilot succeeds the plan is to extend the user base to ~1000 > mobile users. But some water must pass under the bridge before > thinking of that. And if it ever happens, it is going to be gradual. > > Some anecdotal info > I quit my Smalltalk full time job at InfOil (after 9 years of > employment) to dedicate 100% to my new company. So I'm betting big on > this. By now I'm the sole Smalltalk developer (devops?) of the > company. Time has never been more scarce than nowadays. > > Why Pharo? > * Because it is the best open source Smalltalk ("inspired") out there. > * Because I have 10+ years of experience with Smalltalk I can't throw > away in the context of rapid prototyping and business domain modelling > (emphasis on this). > * It was a key advantage during the negotiations, we could show a > wireframed live app even before our competition prepared a PowerPoint > presentation. > > The development process with Pharo has been rudimentary, only > Monticello packages and a couple of workspace scripts to provision new > images. > I still can't get my head around Metacello. But honestly I haven't > dedicated as much time as it needs to be learnt. Having used VAST > ENVY's ConfigurationMaps successfully in the past is a proof I can > learn Metacello. > > During the last years at InfOil we were using git with Dolphin > Smalltalk, with CI after every git push to the main repo. This was > also linked with our issue tracking system, in order to know in which > build a certain issue was fixed. We used Dolphin's PAX's files (CVS > friendly), Gitlab, JetBrain's TeamCity and YouTrack > I'd like to do the same using Monticello's FileTree, BitBucket and > JIRA (CI server to be defined). > > Hopefully with some time, I'll be able to dive deeper into this. > My learning of Pharo tooling hasn't been straightforward, but maybe > because I'm old and spoiled with other Smalltalk dialects (VSE, VAST, > Dolphin). > I was managing the Android code (java) with git branching and merging > way before I learnt how to use Monticello. Managing the code (files) > was the only advantage of working with Eclipse/Java. Everything else > was a burden compared with Pharo. > > I wanted to share my experiences through a blog, but haven't had time > to set it up as I'd like, and by now this email is going to be all I > can share. After the pilot, we can talk about reporting a success > story for Pharo. I felt like this during the last week: > http://devopsreactions.tumblr.com/post/68251866244/successful-deployment-at-last > > > Best regards, > > Esteban A. Maringolo > CTO (aka DevOps), http://trentosur.com >
