Here’s what we’ve been up to lately! If you’d like to have our updates delivered to you each month, you can sign up here.
Product Updates 💻
New Onboarding Flow: Creating Your First AppMap is Easier Than Ever Before!
Allowing developers to understand how application code runs by recording and analyzing code’s runtime behavior is a groundbreaking approach to code observability. But because of its novelty, AppMap requires some unique installation and configuration steps that can be intimidating for new users. We’ve been working hard to streamline the AppMap set-up process and are excited to introduce our new Command Line Installer. It works in all supported projects and environments, and guides users through a new AppMap onboarding flow. If you haven’t created an AppMap of your own yet, give the new flow a try! And please let us know what you think, your feedback is invaluable to us.
With Shallow Recording, AppMap for Java Gets Faster and Snappier
Shallow recording makes the process of observing and analyzing how application code interacts with third party libraries and frameworks much more efficient. When using AppMap with Spring applications, now only the first function call entry into a package (such as the framework logic or other runtime dependency) will be recorded. The interaction with the package is still captured, but extraneous details about the package’s inner workings are eliminated. Or, put more simply, with shallow recording, AppMap for Java is now a lot faster and snappier for all users 😉
To Help You Build Speedier Rails Apps, AppMap Now Supports Ruby 3.0
Ruby 3.0’s performance gains allow for the handling of more intensive workloads, but to take advantage of these gains, code design needs to continuously evolve for clarity and speed. Also, these code design improvements should be done proactively to prevent production issues and via techniques that support the dynamic nature of Ruby. Enter, AppMap for Ruby 3.0, which can help you identify opportunities for more efficient, performant code design earlier than ever before. If you’re working on a Rails project, try downloading AppMap for either RubyMine or VSCode. We’d love to hear if/how it helps you build faster apps or if you come across any other interesting use cases!
Company News 💼
We’re thrilled to share that August was our biggest month ever for IDE-based AppMap installs! THANK YOU to everyone in our community who helped make this happen. We’re grateful for your support and eager to keep building on this momentum. 🥳
Maybe you’re already familiar with our video library of various AppMap use cases and tutorials, but did you know that now we also have a YouTube page? Please subscribe and share our page with your friends and colleagues! We’re creating new video content often and welcome any requests if there’s something in particular you’d like to see.
Over the summer, we started doing hands-on AppMap install workshops with various developer meetup groups. They’re fun, casual and a great way to get the most value out of AppMap really quickly. Also, we love having the opportunity to meet other AppMapers face to face (or at least via Zoom!) Reach out to Lizzie if you’d like to organize a free workshop for your own meetup group or schedule an AppMap lunch-and-learn session for your company.
Notable Content ✍
We’re constantly publishing new content on our doc site, company blog and Dev.to. Here’s some notable content from the past month:
- A thought piece from Elizabeth about how in a remote-first world, strategic developer alignment is more crucial than ever
- An interview with a UX expert and AppMap advisor on how to design impactful developer tools
- A blog post + video on how Java frameworks like Spring work with your code
- A step-by-step guide for installing and using AppMap for Java
Also in content-related news, we found this post by Kristen Berman about how behavioral science can boost your conversion rates fascinating. Also worth flagging: Earlier this month, Tyler Jewel released his latest Developer-Led Landscape report.
Stay in Touch 💜
Thanks so much for reading. Feel free to ping us in Slack with any questions or feedback, we always love hearing from our community!
Cheers, The AppMap Team
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