How we rewrote the Kicksend web app in one month: tips & tricks

How we rewrote the Kicksend web app in one month: tips & tricks(blog.kicksend.com)

67 points by skyfallsin 14 years ago | 9 comments

karanmg 14 years ago |

Rewrites can either be awesome or a struggle to complete and release. Looks like you guys did well. How did you run alternate code in parallel in production - I'm concerned about breaking SEO.

guynamedloren 14 years ago |

nice job on the rewrite!

similar concept: http://boxify.me

built in 1 morning by 1 person. disclaimer: it was me.

joering2 14 years ago | |

Application Error

An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.

-- wow! you coded that all in one morning?

guynamedloren 14 years ago | | |

Good job with your sarcasm. That, my friend, is a timeout, and since it's a side project running on a free (and very limited) heroku instance, I have a feeling somebody is trying to be funny/malicious.

msie 14 years ago |

If switching over involved flipping a switch then you were doing some type of staging. I had the initial impression that you were deploying live.

aaronbrethorst 14 years ago |

Things you should never do, part 1: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

pbreit 14 years ago | |

I used to think that was a solid rule but no more. Nowadays it's almost a strategy to launch with barely more than a functioning prototype and then re-write later. The learnings from the first draft are immeasurable.

mattmanser 14 years ago |

Friendly tip. Add a really obvious link to your product on the blog somewhere. Also the kicksend logo should probably not link back to blog.kicksend.com, that's really irritating, why would I ever want to go to the root of your blog?

It's a conversion barrier to have to transfer to the address bar to figure out who the hell you are.

After all what's the point in this traffic if you can't capitalize on it.