It sounds awesome. Almost everything we do is bound up under serious NDA. I don't see any story here about security.
What would rule would be if someone could build a service like this but use something like Slicehost as the deployment environment, so that each customer got their own machine. I wouldn't even need root, or even a shell login. I'd feel instantly 10x better.
This is going to come across as paranoia from a security geek, and that's a little true, but its my clients concern that's controlling here, and they're not paranoid security geeks; they're Fortune 500 IT/dev shops.
Can you elaborate why you'd feel better if they assured you your data are hosted separately and maybe give you ssh to the machine? They would still be able to access/control all your data.
I really wish I understood how business people percieve security.
It's a good question, you shouldn't have gotten downmodded.
If I'm sharing a single hosted instance of an app with 10 other customers, any bug in the Rails code can potentially give me access to other people's data.
If I own my own instance on a VM, even if I can't get access to the VM, I'm at least assured that I'm not sharing controller or model code with other customers.
Now that creating new public VMs with Rails instances on them is a pushbutton affair, you'd think people would start offering this as a feature. It's a great way to get a "*GOLD" price tier in your app.
This looks like a great tool, but here's my beef: I had used assembla.com for a long time. 100% free, integrated svn and optional trac, bug-tracking, per-project access control with unlimited projects, free massages on thursdays; the works.
This was fantastic, so I put 10 of my non-critical but still important projects on there. All of a sudden last month they've realized that their business was unsustainable and will be charging a fixed monthly rate per project. No monthly rate * 10 can be affordable, so now I need to find another. If it's hosted (and especially free), I run the risk of having to convert all my projects again..
I generally find that hosted == bad when it comes to my code.
I left the PT site after reading "Web 2.0 Interface" in the features list. Then again, all I really want is a bug tracker with standard features and brain-dead simple version control integration. Lighthouse has been good to me since the switch.
We've used Pivotal Tracker over the past year and a half to manage a dozen software development projects. The tool gets out of the way and allows us to focus on what matters most: building great software for our clients. The Pivotal team has worked hard on creating a tool that balances simplicity and power. I would not choose another tool to manage my software projects.
Ben Curren
Founder of esomnie.com and gobootstrap.com
We use it (and LOVE it) at AboutUs.org (Portland start-ups represent!).
Here's what our CTO said:
“I've waited 15 years for a computer program that out-performs index cards. Pivotal Tracker's smooth interface and network-native architecture supports my team's collaborative/distributed planning without giving up the simplicity and physicality of cards. This product had to come from a team that understands how I work. ”
I've been using Tracker since they released a private beta right after Railsconf last June ... it is a truly excellent tool. Tracker codifies the Agile process (more or less following XP principles) way better than any other PM tool I've ever seen.
The tool itself won't make your team more or less productive, though. You really have to understand and be committed to Agile/XP theories, processes and practices for it to work. Tracker can help guide you in that direction ... but like almost any tool, there is a "best" way to use it to get the full benefit.
Can anybody point to a good guide for agile terminology? I'd like to try this out, but I'm not exactly certain what's meant by "stories", "icebox", "velocity", etc.
for small teams (like 2-3 persons), agile development tools might actually get in the way of agile development, as a significant amt of time is spent communicating what can be easily accomplished via Google docs. For larger teams, I can understand the utility as communication costs are much higher in a larger group.
For a small team user of pivotal tracker, I can say with confidence that pivotal tracker will be much much better than google docs. I've used pivotal tracker on various projects ranging from 2-3 people total. Pivotal tracker is almost like a very simple todo list that you can tag & rearrange with dates. If you're going to write a list of items to do, you might as well just use pivotal tracker.
We've been using Pivotal Tracker at Hashrocket for over six months and it's an integral part of our success. It's an opinionated tool in the way that it codifies a successful Agile workflow between developers and their project stakeholders. We couldn't live without it at this point.
What would rule would be if someone could build a service like this but use something like Slicehost as the deployment environment, so that each customer got their own machine. I wouldn't even need root, or even a shell login. I'd feel instantly 10x better.
This is going to come across as paranoia from a security geek, and that's a little true, but its my clients concern that's controlling here, and they're not paranoid security geeks; they're Fortune 500 IT/dev shops.