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Ask HN: When is your side project 'production-ready'?
I had a call with someone who wants to use a tool I built in their profession (medical). They asked me if the application was production-ready. I was confident in saying yes (the app has been running in production for months, and has tests at unit, functional, and integration levels), but I pondered if I could call it production-ready based on that.
How would you deem your side project as production-ready, especially when used in a mission-critical environment?
PS - The project in question is Dashku: https://github.com/Anephenix/dashku (also hosted at https://dashku.com)
- codenesium 14y agoJust fyi that the screenshot on the github page has the word 'nigga' on there from someones comment.
- paulbjensen 14y agoAh, Thanks for pointing that out. I'll scrub the word out from the screenshot.
- fencepost 14y agoYou should make it very clear to the person asking that while you've been using it in non-mission-critical production scenarios for some time, it is still an incomplete and actively developed project with changes and fix bugs on a regular basis and that you provide no warranty or guarantee of fitness for any particular purpose (this is in the MIT license that you're using, but you don't want to promise anything beyond what's in the license which is "we promise nothing."). Basically, Dashku is "incorporate at your own risk" software, with the additional note that the hosted version is absolutely not for mission-critical use, that it may become unavailable at any time for any reason and for any duration. Basically, you want to be sure you're shielded from someone in a "sue everyone!" mindset coming after you just because you wrote a piece of software that was later incorporated into someone else's package where you have no control over how they use it, whether they apply bug fixes, whether they make changes, etc. There's a reason that an awful lot of commercial software EULAs out there include language specifically referring to the software not being suitable for mission-critical, failure-critical, medical, etc. purposes.
- paulbjensen 14y agoThanks for your advice. I didn't realise that commercial software EULA's had clauses for things like that. I guess it means that there is a market for, or should be commercial support for the app.
- bennyg 14y agoHave you had a lot of people that aren't you try to break the living hell out of it? Especially those not familiar with the usual workflow? Especially those that take pride in destroying things? If it can pass that, and you're confident going forward from there, then I would think it's ready.
- paulbjensen 14y agoIn terms of traffic, lots of individuals have tried it, but in terms of trying to make it break, no. That is a great idea, thanks for the suggestion.
- bennyg 14y agoNo problem. A couple buddies and I take turns trying to wreak havoc on each other's software when it comes time to ship. It's quite fun and very good for ensuring interface and codebase stability.
- logn 14y agoYou might want to fix the readme link to the MIT license, as it's broken. Why not paste in the full text? They have that warning about no liability and no warranty which might be really important for you.