RailsRumble: Strategy, Phase 1

Our first steps:

1. Configure linode VPS (and huge thanks to Bryan at Smartic.us for the screencast!)
2. Install and configure monit
3. Create the app
4. Commit to svn
5. Deploy! (and watch for problems)
6. Add (broken) tests for the gems we’ll need
7. Install the gems
8. Run (now successful) tests
9. Commit to svn repo
10. Deploy!
11. Cause some intentional failures to be sure they recover or warn appropriately

We’re only allowed to touch things during the 48 hours from 9p PDT Friday to 9p PDT Sunday and we want to spend most of that time working on the app (or cooking, drinking, playing with kids, sleeping, etc.) so it makes sense to us to get all the infrastructure in place and working first thing.

Meanwhile, we’re looking for folks who can poke, prod, and provide feedback on the app starting ~10a Saturday. We’re figuring that more feedback as we iterate is better. If you volunteer, we’ll ping you each time we deploy; look when you can, offer any feedback you have. We figure the more feedback we get during the development period, the better, so please tell all your friends.