About

EventSheep

Plan

How to build a modern software product / service / pet project

With minimal resources

From a mobile developer perspective

Plan

Approach

• startup / business / pet project
• vision
• market research
• custdev / presales
• MVP
• design
• team
• sales

Tech

• essential technologies
• backend (API, headless cms)
• web clients (Jamstack)
• deploy
• mobile clients (native / multiplatform techs review)

Goal

Discuss non-technical considerations

Give a review of a modern tech stack

Shortcuts for a mobile developer

Pragmatic choice of technologies

With limited resources in mind

Approach

Project goal

Party

Pet project

Startup

Business

Approach

Vision

Vision is a foundation

Если есть видение (vision) того, какой ты хочешь получить результат, то вспомогательные средства не нужны. Четкий, ясный вижн всё делает сам.

Основа успешного стартапа – это рынок, для которого он делает продукт. Если хороший рынок, то "нормальная" команда добьётся заметного успеха. Если плохой рынок, то не спасет и "суперкоманда", нацеленная на кратный рост (и все такое прочее).

Курсы, тренинги, хакатоны – это хорошо, но как косметическая припарка, не более.

Dmitry Tarasov, Chaos Control founder

Approach

Market Research

Rusprofile

Crunchbase

Approach

Customer Development

Presales

Approach

MVP

Forms your product vision

Helps to build roadmaps, milestones, etc…

Approach

Design

❤️ designers

Approach

Team

Approach

Sales

Ads

Cold emails / calls

Sales Navigator (LinkedIn)

Approach

Limited resources

Read as: no resources

1000 days rule

A Typical Service Structure

Backend (API)

Storage

Static landing (SSG)

Admin console (SPA)

Web front (SSR)

CDN

Mobile clients

…

A Typical Service Structure

Backend (API)

Storage

Static landing (SSG)

Admin console (SPA)

Web front (SSR)

CDN

Mobile clients

…

Is it possible to build a product being on your own?

A Full Stack Developer

"Full stack" now means you can:

• build front-ends
• write back-ends
• handle devops
• start a podcast
• curate a newsletter
• crack an egg with one hand
• animate a Pixar movie
• dunk

A Full Stack Developer

Dear recruiters, if you are looking for:

• Java, Python, PHP
• React, Angular
• PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB
• AWS, S3, EC2, ECS, EKS
• *nix system admin
• Git + CI + TDD
• Docker, Kubernetes

That's not a Full Stack Dev. That’s an entire IT department.

© Giulio Carrara, Software Engineer

Backend

Dev hierarchy

At Google, most engineers are too snooty to do mobile or web programming. “I don’t do frontend”, they proclaim with maximal snootiness. Steve Yegge

DAG of Disdain

At the top of Snoot Mountain sit the lofty Search engineers writing in C++, which is considered cooler than Java, which is cooler than Python, which is cooler than JavaScript.

And Search is cooler than Ads, which is cooler than Apps, which is cooler than Tools, which is cooler than Frontends. And so on.

Who will steal Android from Google?

Backend

Badass backend dev pitfall

server(s)

cache

microservices

OpenAPI / GRPC / QUIC

100% test coverage

🍒 bit operations

Backend

Stop future proofing software

We need {X}, despite {Y} being a much easier alternative, because when {Z}, it will make our lives easier.

Where {Z} is an event that might happen sometime in the far future.

Backend

Stop future proofing software

We need {X}, despite {Y} being a much easier alternative, because when {Z}, it will make our lives easier.

Where {Z} is an event that might happen sometime in the far future.

Here’s some examples:

• We need to use a Kubernetes & Docker based solution for our infrastructure, despite a single large server being a much easier alternative, because when we will need to scale it up to 11, it will make our lives easier.

Backend

Stop future proofing software

We need {X}, despite {Y} being a much easier alternative, because when {Z}, it will make our lives easier.

Where {Z} is an event that might happen sometime in the far future.

Here’s some examples:

• We need to use a Kubernetes & Docker based solution for our infrastructure, despite a single large server being a much easier alternative, because when we will need to scale it up to 11, it will make our lives easier.

• We need a distributed design for our data processing, despite a centralized solution being a much easier alternative, because when a customer demands 5 9s of uptime in the SLA, it will make our lives easier.

Backend

Stop future proofing software

Achieving success is harder than living with it

The problem here is twofold:

1. Achieving growth is much harder than supporting it
2. Most exceptional and popular engineers work on products that have to scale

Backend

Stop future proofing software

Achieving success is harder than living with it

The problem here is twofold:

1. Achieving growth is much harder than supporting it
2. Most exceptional and popular engineers work on products that have to scale

Design for flexibility, create the imperfect

I hate code, and I want as little of it as possible in our product.

Jack Diederich

Backend

Stop future proofing software

Achieving success is harder than living with it

The problem here is twofold:

1. Achieving growth is much harder than supporting it
2. Most exceptional and popular engineers work on products that have to scale

Design for flexibility, create the imperfect

I hate code, and I want as little of it as possible in our product.

Jack Diederich

Design optimistically, the future may pleasantly surprise you

Backend

Application server

Spring Boot

Too much "convention over configuration"

DI, DAO

Javalin

Simple and polished

AnySimpleApplicationServer<T>

There are lots of alternatives (Ktor / Vapor / Perfect)

gRPC

Storage

Storage

SQLite

SQLite is a self-contained, file-based and fully open-source RDBMS created by D. Richard Hipp in 2000.

• mature
• lightweight
• robust
• embedded (1 file*)

Does it work at all under load? Yes, with WAL

Sqlite has 10x more test code than source code:
≈1200 tests vs ≈120 source files | 80 Mb test code vs 8 Mb source code.

Even some distributed solutions are based on SQLite:

• Dqlite | Canonical | ☆2.4k
• Rqlite | Philip O’Toole | ☆8k
• ctlstore | Segment | ☆0.2k

Storage

SQLDelight

ORM upside down: not sources → SQL, but SQL → sources

*.sq files with SQL and named queries

It generates typesafe Kotlin APIs from your SQL statements. It verifies your schema, statements, and migrations at compile-time and provides IDE features like autocomplete and refactoring which make writing and maintaining SQL simple.

SQLDelight does slightly less than a mature ORM. But less is more.

Can be used in iOS and Android with KMM.

And even on a JVM backend with different RDBMS (MySQL, PostgreSQL, HSQL, SQLite).

Backend & Storage Stunt Double

BaaS

Back4App | back4app.com

Firebase | firebase.google.com

Backend & Storage Stunt Double

Headless CMS

Strapi | strapi.io

Contentful | contentful.com

Directus | directus.io

Backend & Storage Stunt Double

Headless CMS

Strapi | strapi.io

Contentful | contentful.com

Directus | directus.io

Frontend

Why?

It covers all platforms at once

Why not?

It's a whole new world

Frontend

Frontend

Node - a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine

NPM - the package manager for Node.js

Webpack - a module bundler

Framework

Vue | React | Svelte

Typescript

Is good enough

CSS (SASS / SCSS)

Frontend

developers.google.com/web/updates/2019/02/rendering-on-the-web

Frontend

Admin console

CSR | SPA

Frontend

Admin console

CSR | SPA

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang=en>
<head>
    <meta charset=utf-8>
    <title>Single page application</title>
    <link href=/js/app.93487a00.js rel=preload as=script>
    <link href=/js/chunk-vendors.25dcdeb2.js rel=preload as=script>
</head>
<body>  
    <div id=app></div>
    <script src=/js/chunk-vendors.25dcdeb2.js></script>
    <script src=/js/app.93487a00.js></script>
</body>
</html>

Frontend

Admin console

CSR | SPA

Pros

• simple to build
• fully static deploy

Cons

• performance
• lack of SEO

Frontend

Consumer website

SSR with hydration

Frontend

Landing

Static SSR | built with SSG (Static Site Generator)

Jekyll / Hugo

Next.js / Gatsby

Nuxt.js / VuePress

Serverless functions

Modern forms

based on chat bots | without backend | with notifications

Jamstack

Pre-rendering | Decoupling | serving directly from CDN

Deployment

Nginx

Web server

Load balancer

SSL termination

Reverse proxy (router)

Rate Limiter

HTTP cache

Mail proxy

Deployment

TLS certificates | Let's Encrypt

Simple cases

• admin.somehost.com
• api.somehost.com
• frontend.somehost.com

Docker nginx-proxy + acme-companion

Complex cases with wildcard certificates

• *.somehost.com
• user1.somehost.com

DNS-01 challenge

Deployment

Docker

To isolate their app from its environment

Container is an isolated process on a host

Image is a isolated filesystem for a container to work with all deps, configuration, scripts, etc

version: '3.7'
services:
  api:
    image: username/eventsheep-api-image:${VERSION_API}
    container_name: eventsheep-api-${VERSION_API}
    volumes:
      - data:/data
    environment:
      - BUILD_TYPE=release
    restart: always

Cloud provider

Digital Ocean

AWS

Russian alternatives

CDN

Object storage with a built-in CDN for images & files

Providers

Digital Ocean Spaces

AWS S3

Russian alternatives

Mobile

Native development

$$$

Mobile

Cross-platform

• C/C++ native libraries
• QT (1995)
• PhoneGap/Cordova (2009, 2011 Adobe)
• React Native (2015, Facebook)
• Xamarin (2011, 2016 Microsoft)
• Flutter (2017)
• Kotlin/Native, Kotlin/Multiplatform (2017)
• и другие (Ionic, Sencha, Quasar …)

mdv.eventsheep.com/cross-platform

Final thoughts

Final thoughts

Timing

Final thoughts

Cons

It's a challenge

Requires knowledge and experience

Assumes investments

You're on your own

Pros

Inspiring & encouraging

Knowledge boost

Like a child

Valuable