#NICAR13

What we can do better.

According to Kevin Schaul

Warning

This presentation has no coherent order.

News apps on deadline

Automate everything, a la NPR's app template.

• Develop in a comfortable structure
• "Compile" project for deployment
• Reduces deployment time, headaches
• Automatic documentation

How we deploy today

How many actions does it take to push an update?

Command line

Wouldn't it be nice if we deploy like this?

$ fab deploy
					

Version control

Git. It'll change your life.

• No more emailing code
• Branches
• Rollbacks

No more emailing code

kevin:~$ git commit index.html
kevin:~$ git push
                    

chandra:~$ git commit css/style.css
chandra:~$ git pull
chandra:~$ git push
                    

Branches

kevin:~$ git branch dev
kevin:~$ git commit js/logic.js
kevin:~$ git push origin dev
                    

dave:~$ git pull origin dev
dave:~$ git branch stable
dave:~$ git merge dev
dave:~$ git push origin stable
                    

Rollbacks

kevin:~$ git commit index.html
kevin:~$ git push origin dev
                    

jamie:~$ git pull origin dev
jamie:~$ git log

commit f5b5c189e07ec79e8b257972bf74a20457743609
Author: Kevin Schaul Date:   Fri Mar 8 14:09:20 2013 -0600

    Remove `$` from html
        
    Clickability templates conflict

commit ad0495c78d8a059d447069a72074f8df53cd4e48
Author: Kevin Schaul Date:   Fri Mar 8 10:47:01 2013 -0600

    Updated photo urls in spreadsheet

jamie:~$ git revert HEAD~1
jamie:~$ git push
                    .schaul@gmail.com>.schaul@gmail.com>.schaul@gmail.com>.schaul@gmail.com>

If the command line scares you, I can look for a "pretty" git client.

GitX (L) looks promising.

Style guide

For news apps and code

Check out what ProPublica has done.

DRY

Don't repeat yourself!

The ultimate in coding goodness

Again, automation

Infect the CMS

Design for sidebars, apps, etc.

Tabletop.js

A mini CMS for data projects

Is rate-limited by Google (but we're smart)

The Miso Project

var ds = new Miso.Dataset({
    url : "/data/uranium.csv",
    delimiter : ",",
    columns : [
        { name : "year", type : "time", format : "YYYY" }
    ]
});

ds.fetch({
    success: function() {
    //Select rows in the 80's & find their average
    var uraniumInThe80s = this.where({ 
        rows : function(row) {
            return (row.year >= moment([1980]) && 
                    row.year < moment([1990]));
        }
    }).mean("value");
});
                

Mobile

Yikes.

Other thoughts

• R, for data exploration
• There has been little resistance from our readers to doing awesomeness. — @nytgraphics's Amanda Cox, on IE support

Takeaways

• Our deployment sucks
• Git will help tremendously
• Mobile needs serious thought

End

Thanks!