Necessity is the mother of invention. That's the nice way to say it. For developers, the "mother of invention" is losing your s@#t after hours of scanning code for the one line that is throwing everything else off. The guys at {Track:js} know what I'm talking about, only rather than throw their collective fist through their collective computer, these guys decided to fix the bug...indefinitely.
What they did is build a service that provides error tracking to help developers understand and resolve bugs that their customer are likely to experience.
What I particularly like about their solution is that they did not build it for you; they built it for themselves to better serve their clients. BUT they know that you and your million js-developer friends may also be interested in exchange for a small fee, which is a great start to any new business. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Reed: How did {Track:js} get started?
Todd: As consultants, we had built several large JavaScript applications. In every one we had to build an error tracking system to understand and fix our own bugs. After a few years and several implementations of JavaScript error trackers, we became quite good at it.
Over some post-Minnebar drinks, we discussed offering the software as a service, where our error tracking tool could drop into any JavaScript project and provide immediate context to the development team about how and where customers were having trouble.
We started a prototype, built a demo and pitched it to our JavaScript.MN User Group. They were thrilled! Their feedback proved that we had something that the community needed (and was willing to pay for), so we set out to build the product.
Reed: Very cool story. So, where are you at?
Todd: We have received over 500 requests to join our private beta. But, as an error tracking service, we know that it is important for us to be stable and scalable. After successful testing of our system, we're happy to announce that the service is now available for FREE as a part of our public beta.
Reed: That's great news! As you progress, where do you see {Track:js} in one year?
Todd: JavaScript is still growing and it’s still hard, and the error and logging systems do not lend themselves well to large supportable systems. But, we're optimistic, because, by using our tool in every application we build, we'll continue to discover the errors that deserve your attention, increasing your functionality, giving you better context for errors and enabling you to squash more bugs in real-time. In 2014, I see us all writing better JavaScript and delighting more customers.
Reed: Best of luck to you and the team! We look forward to seeing your tracker this Thursday at the Beta.MN - 1.0 event.