Keeyai.com

I have a need. I have been developing web applications lately using a local dev server and pushing finished code to a production server. Being a web-app, I don’t need to patch anything or get the same data out to all the users when I make a change; I can just change the files on the server and the next access will reflect the new data. Whenever I complete something locally (new feature, bug fix, etc), I commit the changes to my SVN, then FTP the new files to the production server. This is all fine and good. The problem I am running into is when I change lots of files at once, forget to upload, or regress my changes I don’t know which files need to be updated on the production server. I don’t want to just blindly re-upload the entire site everytime because of bandwidth, time, and server specific data, so I need a more elegant solution.

I figured a CMS like mambo, joomla, symphony, et al might be an option, but I’ve never used one of those before and the ones I looked at seem to have a LOT more than I’m looking for, including things that are going to get in the way of this kind of use (for example, some of them control your URLs and files so you never have to worry about anything, but I need that kind of control for web applications). Also, I’m really not interested in learning a whole new system just so I can keep my servers correctly synced, so a CMS is out.

Now, as is my way, I’m thinking it would be nice to just write my own solution that perfectly solves my problem: A simple FTP program that displays files in a way that illuminates which production files are out of date compared to their local source. I think a simple modification date comparison will do nicely. I’ve laid out the feature set and how to solve some of the main issues, and it doesn’t seem like a very large project. I’m planning to write it in Python and release it open source. I don’t expect it to compete with any of the FTP programs out there, but it might help someone else who is in the same boat. As usual, I’d rather write this as part of a small team, so I’m wondering if anyone out there is interested in contributing. Obviously no compensation, but could be a fun way to practice your python and/or give back a little to the open source community.

Please comment/email me with any of the following:

1. Information about a better, easier solution
2. Suggested features
3. Request to join the team