marketing VS www-gitlab-com

GitLab team member here. Thanks for flagging.

Our web team is working to resolve this issue here: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/digital-experience/b...

> Having a web-based IDE is great for newcomers and will work on cheap Chromebooks or iPads

Good call, thanks. GitLab team member here.

From my experience as GitLab trainer in my past job, a web frontend to edit files hides the complexity of Git on the CLI, and helps with the "5 min success" to get going and learning. This can help with team member onboarding, as well as OSS projects looking for contributors.

Combined with CI/CD pipeline feedback in the same interface, without context switches, it makes the learning story easier to follow too.

The first workshops to get started with GitLab CI/CD from 2 years ago, are linked in the documentation, and use the Web IDE. [0] Seen great learning curves from the wider community :-) Taking a note to create a new workshop with the new IDE in the future. [1]

[0] https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/quick_start/

[1] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/corporate_marketing/...

Thank you for the great thoughts :)

> And maybe only cache the downloads on the main branch.

$CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG resolves into the branch when executed in a pipeline. Using it as value for the cache key, Git branches (and related MRs) use different caches. It can be one way to avoid collision but requires more storage with multiple caches. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/variables/predefined_variables...

In general, I agree, the more caches and parallel execution you add, the more complex and error prone it can get. Simulating a pipeline with runtime requirements like network & caches needs its own "staging" env for developing pipelines. That's a scenario not many have, or might be willing to assign resources onto. Static simulation where you predict the building blocks from the yaml config, is something GitLab's pipeline authoring team is working on in https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/6498

And it is also a matter of insights and observability - the critical path in the pipeline has a long max duration, where do you start analysing and how do you prevent this scenario from happening again. Monitoring with the GitLb CI Pipeline Exporter for Prometheus is great, another way of looking into CI/CD pipelines can be tracing.

CI/CD Tracing with OpenTelemetry is discussed in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/338943 to learn about user experiences, and define the next steps. Imho a very hot topic, seeing more awareness for metrics and traces from everyone. Like, seeing the full trace for pipeline from start to end with different spans inside, and learning that the container image pull takes a long time. That can be the entry point into deeper analysis.

Another idea is to make app instrumentation easier for developers, providing tips for e.g. adding /metrics as an http endpoint using Prometheus and OpenTelemetry client libraries. That way you not only see the CI/CD infrastructure & pipelines, but also user side application performance monitoring and beyond in distributed environments. I'm collecting ideas for blog posts in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/corporate_marketing/...

For someone starting with pipeline efficiency tasks, I'd recommend setting a goal - like shown in the blog post X minutes down to Y - and then start with analysing to get an idea about the blocking parts. Evaluate and test solutions for each part, e.g. a terraform apply might depend on AWS APIs, whereas a Docker pull could be switched to use the Dependency proxy in GitLab for caching.

Each environment has different requirements - collect helpful resources from howtos, blog posts, docs, HN threads, etc. and also ask the community about their experience. https://forum.gitlab.com/ is a good spot too. Recommend to create an example project highlighting the pipeline, and allowing everyone to fork, analyse, add suggestions.

Good morning HN. I am the DRI (directly responsible individual) for about.gitlab.com and I have created this issue to audit our trackers, cookies, and other data collection on the marketing website https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/inbound-marketing/ma...

Our product does not include the tracking that is used on the marketing site.

Hi,

> This was not a poor accident by a single employee. It's noble that the author tries to take all the blame on himself, but honestly, I feel like that is a moment where a leader has to step in and accept their mistake and not let a small trooper eat all the bullets.

The issues you have found are all assigned to me, or I created them. My task is to create blog posts, some of which being a hackathon and challenge. The KPI are impressions, other metrics are hard to measure. As a Developer Evangelist, I often need to learn new technologies, or dive into unknown areas connecting the dots.

You can learn more about our focus areas in our handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/community-relati...

I'm focussing on the Ops side, with a backend development background in the past 15 years. I was once a maintainer of an OSS monitoring project called Icinga, a Nagios fork back then. I decided to take on a new journey with becoming a Developer Evangelist in March 2020 (you can learn more on my website https://dnsmichi.at/about/ in case you're interested).

That being said, I've found it interesting to learn about web apps and their deployment, and dive into new things. Never having found a use case for trying Heroku, March brought up one: There was a Twitter theme of "Everyone is building a better Heroku" - https://twitter.com/adamhjk/status/1369704730218299392?s=27

From there, I thought of learning Heroku while comparing it with the 5 minute production app. I underestimated the challenge of creating a web app with a persistent backend, and decided to stick with the simple battleships demo I had initially found.

This state of the blog post felt good enough for me, and I did not include the persistent backend just yet, but moved it into a separate blog post. This is feedback I got during the review.

Turns out that this decision was wrong, next to other negative raw sentiments I had added in the blog post.

You can try to convince that it is not my fault, and I will convince you - it is, and I am standing up for it. Public and transparent.

I know we all get better from making mistakes. The lesson I learned today helped me improve a talk I gave at a meetup in my evening, it added technical insights as well as helped with the story line. That's the tracking issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/corporate_marketing/...

We will continue to iterate, and have a retrospective on what we can improve from the lessons learned today. Thanks for your feedback.

> Whatever spark they were feeling in the moment would be sufficiently stomped when they notice the first step in the tutorial is to create a Makefile. Keep in mind they also introduce the concept of variables and if statements. This tutorial's aimed at total beginners!

Thanks for your great feedback. I suggested using a Makefile during blog post review [0], to avoid explaining gcc compiler flags, and have a single command with `make build` available for future, repeated compilation steps. I did not expect this to be an entry barrier, and will reconsider suggesting makefiles in the future. Thanks again.

[0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

(GitLab team member here)

Wow, thanks a lot for sharing. GitLab team member here.

Would it be ok for you if I add that command snippet into a blog post I am currently writing about Observability for Efficient DevSecOps Pipelines? Draft MR is in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/issues/34296 Thanks!

Regarding pipeline visibility and traces: I would love to see the same :-) I tested tracepusher with OpenTelemetry this week, and the timeline for CI/CD traces is a great start in Jaeger. Added a suggestion into https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5071#note_14582... where CI/CD Visibility is being worked on, with an update on GitLab support for traces in https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5071#note_14584...

GitLab team member here. Thanks for your feedback.

> But IMO there are plenty of other places to add real value across the GitLab product with AI/ML features.

True, and after starting with ML experiments, the product and engineering teams have been working on new features for entire DevOps lifecycle. All AI workflows on the DevSecOps platforms are described in the GitLab Duo announcement blog post https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2023/06/22/meet-gitlab-duo-the... and website https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/

I'll share a few highlights that I am personally excited about

- Explain and help fix security vulnerabilities. From my personal experience, I often find CVEs hard to read, especially when I am not the author of the code to fix. Getting help from AI can reduce entry barriers and make development for efficient. Security is everyone's responsibility these days. This follows the AI assisted feature to explain code in general. "What does this magic loop with memcpy do?" might not stay magic anymore, easing the path to code refactoring, improving performance, and reduce the resource usage footprint.

- Summarize issue comments. Feature proposals or bug analysis can have long comment threads that require reading time. AI will help get the gist and better contribute to what has been discussed.

- Summarize MR changes, to avoid reading long change diffs. This helps with faster (code) review cycles. I tested it this week with an MR for our handbook in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

I'd also like to see AI helping fix CI/CD pipelines fast. Proposal in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/386863 I shared some thoughts in a new talk "Observability for Efficient DevSecOps Pipelines", slides in https://go.gitlab.com/VDAvMw (GitLab blog post coming soon, https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/issues/34296)

Additionally, I learned some new ideas at Cloudland last week, regarding product owner requirements list verification, and end-to-end test automation with AI. Need to create feature proposals :-)

> As a longtime GitLab user (and onetime contributor!),

Thanks for contributing. I'd like to invite you to share your ideas about AI features across the platform :)

When you look at the DevOps lifecycle (image in https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/) from plan/manage to create, verify, secure, package, release, deploy, monitor, govern - where do you see yourself, and where do you spend the most time in?

Second question: Which process feels the most inefficient? After identifying answers to the questions, please check the AI features https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/ai_features.html and/or open new feature proposals for GitLab https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/new?issuable_t... You can tag @dnsmichi so I can engage with your ideas. Thanks!

Tangentially related: One can store SSH server host keys in DNS and tell the client to make use of them. This is an alternative to the client asking the user to confirm the server host key, which many people just blindly confirm.

I asked GitLab if they could make use of that, but it hasn't received much attention so far:

* https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/issues/10376

Thanks a lot for helping :-)

I've created an MR to link MVC in the handbook: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

(GitLab team member here)

Why not? Gitlab keeps their entire employee handbook in a Git repo.

GitLab team member here.

Sharing a personal insight - I'm currently moving flats in the Nuremberg area in Germany which is a little hectic because forced out by the new house flat owner. Async work enables me to take calls and go shopping to organize the move, whilst shifting work hours into the evening or early morning. I am also able to take paid time off (PTO) when needed to prepare the move early December. In my previous office job, I would have needed to reserve a lot of vacation days for this, and ask for permission to start later than 10am, or after 4pm. Here at GitLab, I am my own manager [0] and take care about my working hours - it is a personal freedom, and I appreciate these less stressful times a lot. In return, I can take time to focus on private life, and come back refreshed to produce great results (blog posts, talks, helpful replies here and other community channels, etc.).

What I learned in the past 2 years and 9 months at GitLab, is to provide as much context as needed so that someone else in a different timezone can continue async, and is not blocked by anything (low context communication [1]). Also, short toes [2] enable everyone to add their thoughts and opinions, and work with the directly individual responsible (DRI) for the best outcome.

The Slack retention period of 90 days is a great reminder (and also enforcement) to document everything in the handbook. Example from today: I learned that Google docs supports the colon for emoji live-search. Thought of sharing in Slack, but then went with editing the handbook and sending a MR [3] to help everyone find this little efficiency tip in the future - that said, Slack is not a knowledge base. The GitLab handbook is.

Thinking about the past year with a public discussion about speaker diversity at events, I admire our teams to take action to ensure events align with our diversity, inclusion and belonging values. We have updated our event requirements for speakers (MR [4], handbook page [5]), and are working with event organizers and the wider community to help with mentoring and coaching to inspire future speakers.

Last but not least, transparency [6]. Internal and external, I can read and learn async at my own pace. Most of my meetings are optional, and the meeting notes/recording are detailed, with follow-up actions. You'll never recap old meeting notes the next time but reference actioned issues and merge requests. Many issues/epics are public - if you'd like to learn more about my thought leadership strategy for Observability, and all content created and planned, you can follow this epic [7] or my profile activity [8] for example.

I haven't met everyone in-person yet, because of the pandemic, and travel only for some events (KubeCon EU/NA, PromCon EU [9] [10]), but I am looking forward to meet and value these moments. Hard to describe, I feel incredibly connected to my teams albeit living far far away. :-)

Happy to share more thoughts and insights - my role is on the community relations/developer evangelism team, I'm the stable counterpart for the product teams, and collaborate in cross-functional initiatives often. [11] My first [12] and second [13] year blog posts share more experiences too :-)

[0] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/#managers-of-on...

[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#effective-c...

[2] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#short-toes

[3] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

[4] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

[5] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/corporate-market...

[6] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#transparency

[7] https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-com/marketing/-/epics/2593

[8] https://gitlab.com/dnsmichi

[9] https://dnsmichi.at/2022/06/13/my-kubecon-eu-experience-firs...

[10] https://opsindev.news/archive/2022-11-23/#promcon-eu

[11] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/community-relati...

[12] https://dnsmichi.at/2021/03/02/my-1st-year-all-remote-at-git...

[13] https://dnsmichi.at/2022/03/02/2-years-all-remote-and-2022-v...

Today I learned, thanks a lot!

Created a MR for the Developer Evangelism Hacker News handbook to add this formatting tip, and some more https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

As a shadow, you would contribute anywhere, not just on the CEO Shadow process.

I see them often on slack updating various random pages:

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...