Rate my startup: hosted continuous integration for Python

[Xixi]

I'd like to get some early feedback about my new startup, ShiningPanda: Hosted Continuous Integration for Python.

http://www.shiningpanda.com

The goal is to provide a dead simple web service so that you can build, test and deploy your various Python projects, without having to care about setting up servers, databases, build tools, reporting, etc. This includes of course web projects based on django, web.py, werkzeug, etc., but also the associated functional tests based on Selenium.

We are planning to enter into private beta soon, so if you would like to participate, please let us know. If you feel like telling us about what your dream integration service would be like, let us know too, we really want to hear about what our (future) users want!

Thanks in advance! Alexis

[Lewisham]

The thing you will really need to push on in your message is ease-of-use and functionality. Continuous Integration is one of those things that you mention to most teams and they raise an eyebrow and go "Why would I do that? Our tests only take 30 seconds." For the teams that know how CI would help them, they're already running a Hudson instance, and will need a compelling reason to switch.

I think you'll definitely need to start talking about the sort of things you get with Hudson plugins: particularly reporting, static code analysis etc. above and beyond simply building and running tests.

I'm a big believer in CI. I work with Hudson every once in a while, and the devs on that project are very good indeed. It's definitely an enterprise hammer which doesn't necessarily make it too easy to crack small nuts (hudson.rb alleviates much as you don't need a Java web server, but you still need some private server somewhere), and more people running CI can only be a net benefit.

[jreposa]

I'm having a hard time understanding what role ShiningPanda would play in our deployment process. Is this a hosted Capistrano type service, but with testing? Or, is it more like Heroku but with EC2/GAE/etc?

Something like "it's the [Heroku|or whatever] for Python" would be much easier to understand how to utilize your offering.

Or, is there really no other comparable service?

Linked: http://www.shiningpanda.com

[Xixi → jreposa]

We are not at all like heroku. We build, test, and if everything is ok we deploy to your test/production servers. If we were doing Ruby then we could very well deploy to Heroku.

A comparable could be Bamboo, which is for Java. So you could say we are the Bamboo of Python. http://www.atlassian.com/software/bamboo/

Bamboo itself is not hosted, but I think it is included as a hosted product through JIRA Studio.

[old-gregg → jreposa]

He said very clearly: it is a continuous integration server. I don't understand where your analogies with Heroku are coming from. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_integration

[jreposa → old-gregg]

Gotcha. It's my mistake. I was thinking of Continuous Deployment. CI seems like something I should be doing though.

[mgrouchy → jreposa]

If I understand correctly, it is a service that provides a continuous integration server, so it means that it would take the place of Capistrano in your deployment process. Instead of deploying with Capistrano, you push to github/bitbucket, etc. , webhooks notify shiningpanda, shiningpanda pulls your source, runs your test suite, if all tests pass, it deploys the code on your hosting provider.

[madflo]

If I understand correctly your message, my buildbot master server and instances could be replaced by your service.

Well, I'm interested.

I'm building a SaaS application for customers in the health care industry. It's a Django project with about a dozen apps. Each app has its own test suite.

I would be interested in the following :

- ability to get some shiny output visualization,

- running some web hooks when a test suite is going nuts,

- ability to customize the environnement for each app (which libs...),

- ability to build swig modules and to link them against binary libs (32bits) before running some tests

[franck → madflo]

Web hooks when the build or tests fail would indeed be a great addition to the service.

[hsuresh]

Sorry for the shameless plug, but we are working on a similar service for Ruby projects -> http://www.buildcop.com

[Argorak]

The Ruby world had something like this, called RunCodeRun. They closed down and wrote down a nice list of things on how it didn't work. How do you see those problems?

http://blog.runcoderun.com/post/463439385/saying-goodbye-to-...

[jnoller]

This looks pretty awesome, and I think it fills a needed gap in the ecosystem. If I had a web app to publicly host, I'd definitely be giving this a try!

[roblund]

Looks like a cool idea. I am definitely interested to see your interface, and how you schedule your builds. Having a reliable continuous integration system setup is super important if you hope to keep a large test suite up-to-date and relevant. I also really dislike configuring servers (like a CI server), so it is nice to have a hosted service that would handle a lot of that stuff for me.

[agentultra → roblund]

Having a CI system that is easy to maintain, has granular reporting at regular intervals of the build process, and is a breeze to write tests for is golden.

A hosted service would be a good first step in this direction.

[recampbell]

I'm helping to build a similar service at http://cloudbees.com. It's basically a Hudson as a Service, so you can build pretty much whatever you want. Hudson build machines are dynamically attached to your Hudson master, and removed when the build is done. We plan to support most Hudson plugins.

[olivier75 → recampbell]

ShiningPanda aims to be a little bit more than an Hudson in the cloud. It provides some built-in Python environments to run your tests, and allows you to easily plug some web 2.0 reports instead of console 1.0 outputs (coverage, code analysis, ...). If you need some extra dependences to run your tests (such as databases...), it's as easy as a click. And with a continuous deployment service, it's really a friend that helps you to safely send code (by testing it) from your source repository to your production site.

[dustingetz]

presumably you already know the business model. Do you intend to be a serious host? Do you understand the challenges of being "rock solid" (quoted from Heroku.com)? This is the type of business that I doubt few kids in a basement can put together--It seems that you need a real team, with real credentials and real funding. What do you think?

[3lectricsheep → dustingetz]

Hello there, my first post here :)

I understand your point, but i think that people need to start building prototypes, minimum viable products, and then (if they are lucky enough) will have all the fun to scale their startup.

Talking about fundings at this stage is a bit premature, in my opinion.

[dustingetz → 3lectricsheep]

imo its not really a startup in the HN sense of "find and validate a business model"--the business model is known, so imo its much more about skill of execution than iterating prototypes.

[photon_off → dustingetz]

Iterating prototypes is execution.

[moron4hire]

Couple this with a DHTML editor and automatic revision control (new revision on every save) and I would love it. DropBox has been great for hacking client-side apps across multiple machines, but for web apps it's kind of a chore.

You know, Google Docs + some sort of web-based VIM + CodePad.org would be the bees knees.

[Xixi → moron4hire]

That sounds like an interesting idea, but I think it would be quite of a stretch to include this in the scope of ShiningPanda.

We are really focused on the testing part of software development. How you write the code is up to you, or to another startup...

[rfinn → Xixi]

I'm actually working on this idea right now.

[markitechtMA]

This is great. My friend and I were thinking of building something simple for GitHub -> GAE continuous deployment, but this expanded feature set is really the right path i think.

I signed up and am hoping to hear more, shoot me an email, I'd love to be in the loop and give more feedback as you roll out.

[franck → markitechtMA]

What you had in mind sounds a lot like DryDrop in case you're interested : http://drydrop.binaryage.com

[faust1]

i am not into programming but can give you suggestion regarding design element. consider changing the "panda" in orange at banner area. just my personal observation. otherwise your site looks very good.

[Xixi → faust1]

Thanks for the feedback on design elements, it's important too! What color would you put the "panda" in? Green like the "shining"?

[atuladhar]

Looks pretty good. Are there any plans to expand this beyond Python?

[Xixi → atuladhar]

Not anytime soon, we need to get Python up and running first! From there we will decide. We might look into Ruby, but don't expect anything soon.

[cool-RR]

Sounds very exciting, looking forward to your private beta!