If you’ve been to the site today you may be wondering just what the heck has changed. And visually, not a lot 🙂 But behind the scenes…
I’ve been working on the PayPal update for a good long while now. I estimated two weeks, and it turned into 6 months, give or take. Fun times.
A big part of why the PayPal update was so long in the making was that I needed to make a major structural change the DB. Originally I had planned for multiple payment providers when switching from the Twig approach, to the new API / hybrid approach.
All that’s cool, and works, but I made a boob in setting the mapping between a User account and a “Payment Information”. I made it one to one, whereas it should have been one to many. Oopsie daisy.
There’s probably a bunch of ways I could have addressed this problem. The way I chose was to have two copies of the database active, change the schema in the prod db, then query the old DB for the relevant info, and write that back to the new schema.
With a change like that I knew there would be downtime. I had a big checklist created on what to do, and how to do it, and largely it all went well.
Somewhere along the way, I decided I also wanted to add a forum. You may have received an email from the forum a few weeks ago. If you did, the link wouldn’t have worked – my mistake, so apologies about that. As it stands, this work is a precursor to the forum work, more on that in another email.
Anyway, I decided to split the PayPal work into two chunks. The first being the DB schema change (now complete), and the second, smaller piece being to enable PayPal. That will happen sometime this weekend. Right now I’m done changing stuff 🙂
The biggest change today has been that now anyone can sign up without needing a credit card. Over the next few weeks, some videos will require you to log in / have a free account to watch.
The existing paid content will remain only available to paying subscribers.
The primary reason for the new free account structure is for the forum.
To be completely clear – for paying subscribers, nothing is changing.
Heads Up: If you experience any strangeness / unexpected errors, please first try logging out and back in again. This update moved the API from Symfony 3 to Symfony 4, and involved a complete new Docker stack. If problems persist, get in touch via the support form, or email.
GDPR
There will be some forthcoming revisions to the terms and conditions, and privacy policy regarding GDPR.
For what it’s worth, I don’t have much tracking. On the site I have Google Analytics (which I use), and Facebook Pixel (which I don’t, but everyone tells me I should).
I also track anonymous video interaction. In other words I know what videos are being watched, and for how long, but I don’t know who by. Personally I don’t like being tracked, and whilst it’s probably detrimental to the success of the site, I have the luxury of building CRV how I want, not how some slimey marketing guy dictates.
The gist of the change is simply this:
You always have the right to request your data. And you always have the right to request I delete any data I have about you.
For existing subscribers who add their name / company details for printing invoices, I wipe these details as and when your paid subscription ends.
Moving forwards I will be deleting inactive user accounts older than 90 days. You will receive an email asking you to log in to confirm you still want your account. If you don’t log in, the account is deleted. With forum integration, this will lead to anonymising your post, but the post will remain.
If you have any questions on this then please reply, email me directly, or use the support form.
Site News
I have been adding videos as regularly as time permits. There have been over 30 new videos uploaded since I last emailed (~6 weeks ago).
Video updates will continue as ever, primarily focusing on the Beginners Guide to Back End (JSON API) + Front End Development [2018] course. I have a bunch of other ad-hoc videos to share, and ~30 new videos written up waited to be recorded.
If you would like to make videos and share them on CodeReviewVideos.com then please get in touch. Beginners are very much welcome, and there are a bunch of benefits to doing this. If at all interested, hit reply and get in touch.
Have A Great Weekend
Ok, that’s about it from me. I’m off out to enjoy the sun.
As ever, have a great weekend, and happy coding.
Chris
