Using Feature Flags To Ship Beta Features In Stable Builds

• Name : Jeff Pihach
• Twitter : @fromanegg
• Github : hatched
• Website : fromanegg.com

##Abstract

With the growing complexity of web applications and the diversity of platforms it is becoming harder to ship 100% stable products while relying solely on internal testing and QA. To combat this many have been relying on controlled rollouts of new features to their active client base once internal testing and QA shows that these features are stable enough. But what if the users hate the new features, render the application unusable on their platform, or the application is packaged for user installation?

Bringing experience from implementing this technique on existing large scale applications I’ll teach you how to avoid these pitfalls by integrating url feature flags into your application. This will allow you to develop, test, and enhance new features within your stable application and allow users to easily toggle these beta, alpha, or even pre-alpha features on and off.

##Speaker Bio

Jeff is a software engineer at Canonical developing the awesome GUI for the very awesome Juju. A proponent of open source software, Jeff spends his free time on his blog fromanegg.com and contributing to various open source projects including the YUI JavaScript framework. His most recent speaking engagements were YUIConf 2011-12, Prairie Dev Con 2013 and various local meetups.