Our teamwork pipeline uses Google Sheets as a very basic database. We use it because it is a standard spreadsheet that can be accessed online and shared. Based on the exported CSV from this Google sheet, carry out any further analysis.
Since sharing work leads to mistakes, I have to restore the version that makes the mistake without losing the other changes. Since Google Sheets' version history isn't as useful as Git's, I want to put this spreadsheet (ideally, the CSV) under Github version control on an automatic basis.
Would it be possible to do that?
I will need to get into the spreadsheet, export the CSV, and push it to the appropriate repository if I have to do that manually. I think it would be easy to automate. I'm not sure how to do it.
I appreciate your help.
You do not need to export, your spreadsheet can be reached using endpoint as follows
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/##ssID##/gviz/tq?tqx=out:csv&sheet=##sheetName##
DoltHub is an excellent fit for this use case where you have a spreadsheet being built collaboratively and you want the ability to see the full version history, audit where/when/who each cell's value came from, diff any versions of the spreadsheet, and much more. It's free to use DoltHub and you can easily export your data to CSV from the web, or pull it all down as a Dolt database and access everything locally.
Here's a DoltHub blog post that covers this exact use case in more detail:
https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2022-07-15-so-you-want-spreadsheet-version-control/
If you haven't heard of DoltDB or DoltHub yet, here's a little more background...
DoltDB is the first versioned SQL relational database. It has all the power of a SQL database with all the versioning features of Git. That gives you a database that you can branch and fork, push and pull, merge and diff, just like a Git repository. It's open-source and written from the ground up in Go, and targets full MySQL compliance, so you can use it seamlessly with any tools that connect to a MySQL database.
DoltHub is an online site for finding and collaborating on datasets. The Git-style versioning features built into DoltDB enable easy and safe collaboration and gives you a Pull Request workflow for accepting changes, just like on GitHub. You can control if you want your dataset to be public or private with the free tier, and there's a Pro tier if you need to host private databases larger than 1GB. There's even a DoltLab product available for teams that need to keep their data on their own private network.
There's a very active and friendly DoltHub user community on Discord where the DoltHub dev team hangs out, too, if you have any questions/comments/feedback.
I've recently decided to embark on a fun / educational personal project to create some data visualizations and power metrics for my fantasy football league. Since ESPN doesn't provide an API, I've decided to use a combination of elbow grease and the nfldb to pull relevant data (and am hoping to get familiar with Plotly for presenting the data). In setting up nfldb, I'm also getting my first exposure to databases, using postgresql in particular (as required by nfldb).
Since the installation guide provided by nfldb is Linux-centric and assumes a fair bit of previous database experience, I've looked to this guide for help and blindly followed its instructions in hopes of sidestepping postgresql (aka the "just make it work" "solution"). Of course, that didn't work, and I have no idea how to diagnose the problem(s), so I've decided to go ahead and use this opportunity to get a little familiar with databases / postgresql.
I've looked to the postgresql documentation for guidance. Having never worked in a server / client environment, the following text (from "18.1. The PostgreSQL User Account") has me particularly confused:
As with any server daemon that is accessible to the outside world, it is advisable
to run PostgreSQL under a separate user account. This user account should only own
the data that is managed by the server, and should not be shared with other
daemons. (For example, using the user nobody is a bad idea.) It is not advisable
to install executables owned by this user because compromised systems could then
modify their own binaries.
To add a Unix user account to your system, look for a command useradd or adduser.
The user name postgres is often used, and is assumed throughout this book, but you
can use another name if you like.
I'd really appreciate a well annotated version of these paragraphs. How does it apply to someone like me, storing and accessing date on the same machine? Do I need to create a new system user account? How do I make sure it "only owns the data that is managed by the server"? Where is the responsible location to install postgresql? Am I exposed to some sort of security risk by downloading the nfldb database? Why is the user nobody a bad idea?
Relevant: I am using a Mac (v10.11.6) and plan to install (or re-install, if necessary) postgresql using Homebrew.
I am working on a website of 3,000+ pages that is updated on a daily basis. It's already built on an open source CMS. However, we cannot simply continue to apply hot fixes on a regular basis. We need to replace the entire system and I anticipate the need to replace the entire system on a 1-2 year basis. We don't have the staff to work on a replacement system while the other is being worked on, as it results in duplicate effort. We also cannot have a "code freeze" while we work on the new site.
So, this amounts to changing the tire while driving. Or fixing the wings while flying. Or all sorts of analogies.
This brings me to a concept called "continuous migration." I read this article here: https://www.acquia.com/blog/dont-wait-migrate-drupal-continuous-migration
The writer's suggestion is to use a CDN like Fastly. The idea is that a CDN allows you to switch between a legacy system and a new system on a URL basis. This idea, in theory, sounds like a great idea that would work. This article claims that you can do this with Varnish but Fastly makes the job easier. I don't work much with Varnish, so I can't really verify its claims.
I also don't know if this is a good idea or if there are better alternatives. I looked at Fastly's pricing scheme, and I simply cannot translate what it means to a specific price point. I don't understand these cryptic cloud-service pricing plans, they don't make sense to me. I don't know what kind of bandwidth the website uses. Another agency manages the website's servers.
Can someone help me understand whether or not using an online CDN would be better over using something like Varnish? Is there free or cheaper solutions? Can someone tell me what this amounts to, approximately, on a monthly or annual basis? Any other, better ways to roll out a new website on a phased basis for a large website?
Thanks!
I think I do not have the exact answers to your question but may be my answer helps a little bit.
I don't think that the CDN gives you an advantage. It is that you have more than one system.
Changes to the code
In professional environments I'm used to have three different CMS installations. The fist is the development system, usually on my PC. That system is used to develop the extensions, fix bugs and so on supported by unit-tests. The code is committed to a revision control system (like SVN, CVS or Git). A continuous integration system checks the commits to the RCS. When feature is implemented (or some bugs are fixed) a named tag will be created. Then this tagged version is installed on a test-system where developers, customers and users can test the implementation. After a successful test exactly this tagged version will be installed on the production system.
A first sight this looks time consuming. But it isn't because most of the steps can be automated. And the biggest advantage is that the customer can test the change on a test system. And it is very unlikely that an error occurs only on your production system. (A precondition is that your systems are build on a similar/equal environment. )
Changes to the content
If your code changes the way your content is processed it is an advantage when your
CMS has strong workflow support. Than you can easily add a step to your workflow
which desides if the content is old and has to be migrated for the current document.
This way you have a continuous migration of the content.
HTH
Varnish is a cache rather than a CDN. It intercepts page requests and delivers a cached version if one exists.
A CDN will serve up contents (images, JS, other resources etc) from an off-server location, typically in the cloud.
The cloud-based solutions pricing is often very cryptic as it's quite complicated technology.
I would be careful with continuous migration. I've done both methods in the past (continuous and full migrations) and I have to say, continuous is a pain. It means double the admin time for everything, and assumes your requirements are the same at all points in time.
Unfortunately, I would say you're better with a proper rebuilt on a 1-2 year basis than a continuous migration, but obviously you know best about that.
I would suggest you maybe also consider a hybrid approach? Build yourself an export tool to keep all of your content in a transferrable state like CSV/XML/JSON so you can just import into a new system when ready. This means you can incorporate new build requests when you need them in a new system (what's the point in a new system if it does exactly the same as the old one) and you get to keep all your content. Plus you don't need to build and maintain two CMS' all the time.
I'm using an application that is very interactive and is now at the point of requiring a real analytics solution. We generate roughly 2.5-3 million events per month (and growing), and would like to build reports to analyze cohorts of users, funneling, etc. The reports are standard enough that it would seem feasible to use an existing service.
However, given the volume of data I am worried that the costs of using a hosted analytics solution like MixPanel will become very expensive very quickly. I've also looked into building a traditional star-schema data warehouse with offline background processes (I know very little about data warehousing).
This is a Ruby application with a PostgreSQL backend.
What are my options, both build and buy, to answer such questions?
Why not building your own?
Check this open source project as an exemple:
http://www.warefeed.com
It is very basic and you will have to built datamart feature you will need in your case
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We have written a software package for a particular niche industry. This package has been pretty successful, to the extent that we have signed up several different clients in the industry, who use us as a hosted solution provider, and many others are knocking on our doors. If we achieve the kind of success that we're aiming for, we will have literally hundreds of clients, each with their own web site hosted on our servers.
Trouble is, each client comes in with their own little customizations and tweaks that they need for their own local circumstances and conditions, often (but not always) based on local state or even county legislation or bureaucracy. So while probably 90-95% of the system is the same across all clients, we're going to have to build and support these little customizations.
Moreover, the system is still very much a work in progress. There are enhancements and bug fixes happening continually on the core system that need to be applied across all clients.
We are writing code in .NET (ASP, C#), MS-SQL 2005 is our DB server, and we're using SourceGear Vault as our source control system. I have worked with branching in Vault before, and it's great if you only need to keep 2 or 3 branches synchronized - but we're looking at maintaining hundreds of branches, which is just unthinkable.
My question is: How do you recommend we manage all this?
I expect answers will be addressing things like object architecture, web server architecture, source control management, developer teams etc. I have a few ideas of my own, but I have no real experience in managing something like this, and I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have done this sort of thing before.
Thanks!
I would recommend against maintaining separate code branches per customer. This is a nightmare to maintain working code against your Core.
I do recommend you do implement the Strategy Pattern and cover your "customer customizations" with automated tests (e.g. Unit & Functional) whenever you are changing your Core.
UPDATE:
I recommend that before you get too many customers, you need to establish a system of creating and updating each of their websites. How involved you get is going to be balanced by your current revenue stream of course, but you should have an end in mind.
For example, when you just signed up Customer X (hopefully all via the web), their website will be created in XX minutes and send the customer an email stating it's ready.
You definitely want to setup a Continuous Integration (CI) environment. TeamCity is a great tool, and free.
With this in place, you'll be able to check your updates in a staging environment and can then apply those patches across your production instances.
Bottom Line: Once you get over a handful of customers, you need to start thinking about automating your operations and your deployment as yet another application to itself.
UPDATE: This post highlights the negative effects of branching per customer.
Our software has very similar requirements and I've picked up a few things over the years.
First of all, such customizations will cost you both in the short and long-term. If you have control over it, place some checks and balances such that sales & marketing do not over-zealously sell customizations.
I agree with the other posters that say NOT to use source control to manage this. It should be built into the project architecture wherever possible. When I first began working for my current employer, source control was being used for this and it quickly became a nightmare.
We use a separate database for each client, mainly because for many of our clients, the law or the client themselves require it due to privacy concerns, etc...
I would say that the business logic differences have probably been the least difficult part of the experience for us (your mileage may vary depending on the nature of the customizations required). For us, most variations in business logic can be broken down into a set of configuration values which we store in an xml file that is modified upon deployment (if machine specific) or stored in a client-specific folder and kept in source control (explained below). The business logic obtains these values at runtime and adjusts its execution appropriately. You can use this in concert with various strategy and factory patterns as well -- config fields can contain names of strategies etc... . Also, unit testing can be used to verify that you haven't broken things for other clients when you make changes. Currently, adding most new clients to the system involves simply mixing/matching the appropriate config values (as far as business logic is concerned).
More of a problem for us is managing the content of the site itself including the pages/style sheets/text strings/images, all of which our clients often want customized. The current approach that I've taken for this is to create a folder tree for each client that mirrors the main site - this tree is rooted at a folder named "custom" that is located in the main site folder and deployed with the site. Content placed in the client-specific set of folders either overrides or merges with the default content (depending on file type). At runtime the correct file is chosen based on the current context (user, language, etc...). The site can be made to serve multiple clients this way. Efficiency may also be a concern - you can use caching, etc... to make it faster (I use a custom VirtualPathProvider). The largest problem we run into is the burden of visually testing all of these pages when we need to make changes. Basically, to be 100% sure you haven't broken something in a client's custom setup when you have changed a shared stylesheet, image, etc... you would have to visually inspect every single page after any significant design change. I've developed some "feel" over time as to what changes can be comfortably made without breaking things, but it's still not a foolproof system by any means.
In my case I also have no control other than offering my opinion over which visual/code customizations are sold so MANY more of them than I would like have been sold and implemented.
This is not something that you want to solve with source control management, but within the architecture of your application.
I would come up with some sort of plugin like architecture. Which plugins to use for which website would then become a configuration issue and not a source control issue.
This allows you to use branches, etc. for the stuff that they are intended for: parallel development of code between (or maybe even over) releases. Each plugin becomes a seperate project (or subproject) within your source code system. This also allows you to combine all plugins and your main application into one visual studio solution to help with dependency analisys etc.
Loosely coupling the various components in your application is the best way to go.
As mention before, source control does not sound like a good solution for your problem. To me it sounds that is better yo have a single code base using a multi-tenant architecture. This way you get a lot of benefits in terms of managing your application, load on the service, scalability, etc.
Our product using this approach and what we have is some (a lot) of core functionality that is the same for all clients, custom modules that are used by one or more clients and at the core a the "customization" is a simple workflow engine that uses different workflows for different clients, so each clients gets the core functionality, its own workflow(s) and some extended set of modules that are either client specific or generalized for more that one client.
Here's something to get you started on multi-tenancy architecture:
Multi-Tenant Data Architecture
SaaS database tenancy patterns
Without more info, such as types of client specific customization, one can only guess how deep or superficial the changes are. Some simple/standard approaches to consider:
If you can keep a central config specifying the uniqueness from client to client
If you can centralize the business rules to one class or group of classes
If you can store the business rules in the database and pull out based on client
If the business rules can all be DB/SQL based (each client having their own DB
Overall hard coding differences based on client name/id is very problematic, keeping different code bases per client is costly (think of the complete testing/retesting time required for the 90% that doesn't change)...I think more info is required to properly answer (give some specifics)
Layer the application. One of those layers contains customizations and should be able to be pulled out at any time without affect on the rest of the system. Application- and DB-level "triggers" (quoted because they may or many not employ actual DB triggers) that call customer-specific code or are parametrized with customer keys) are very helpful.
Core should never be customized, but you must layer it in somewhere, even if it is simplistic web filtering.
What we have is a a core datbase that has the functionality that all clients get. Then each client has a separate database that contains the customizations for that client. This is expensive in terms of maintenance. The other problem is that when two clients ask for a simliar functionality, it is often done differnetly by the two separate teams. There is currently little done to share custiomizations between clients and make common ones become part of the core application. Each client has their own application portal, so we don't have the worry about a change to one client affecting some other client.
Right now we are looking at changing to a process using a rules engine, but there is some concern that the perfomance won't be there for the number of records we need to be able to process. However, in your circumstances, this might be a viable alternative.
I've used some applications that offered the following customizations:
Web pages were configurable - we could drag fields out of view, position them where we wanted with our own name for the field label.
Add our own views or stored procedures and use them in: data grids (along with an update proc) and reports. Each client would need their own database.
Custom mapping of Excel files to import data into system.
Add our own calculated fields.
Ability to run custom scripts on forms during various events.
Identify our own custom fields.
If you clients are larger companies, you're almost going to need your own SDK, API's, etc.