Squidblog

The Giant Squids recently got a chance to chat live with Gil Hildebrand Jr., our Chief Engineer and one of the first members of the SquidTeam. There wasn’t quite enough time to answer all their questions, so I’ve picked some of the best and let Gil share his answers, here. Have fun! — Megan, Editor in Chief

Q: What does the “Chief Engineer” do all day?

Gil: Saving the world, duh! Well, not quite, but being a Chief Engineer does involve performing a minor miracle here and there. When you have trouble accessing Squidoo, no matter what time of day it is, you can bet that I’m on a computer somewhere in the world doing everything I can to bring it back online right away. Equally as important, I’m always developing new reports and other tools to identify and wipe out spam as quickly as possible.

One of the tricks to successful development is to avoid optimizing too soon. Often, this means developing new features quickly to see if they stick. If a feature does become popular, it usually needs a little TLC in order to scale to thousands or hundreds of thousands of users. This is another key responsibility for the Chief Engineer.

When I’m not knee deep in code, or remote controlling a server hundreds (or thousands!) of miles away, I do my best to keep up with the community. I want to know which features lensmasters want most, which bugs are driving people crazy, and who’s finding new ways to use Squidoo. With a high level view of everything tech, it’s easier to identify the hot spots where our small but nimble team can be most effective.

Q: Any ideas or plans to either 1) have some kind of REST or XML ability to edit lenses through a third party app or 2) make submission and approval of 3rd party modules easier to develop / use / submit ?

G: We do not have plans to build an API for building or managing lenses. There’s just too great of a chance that those tools will be used to create massive amounts of spam and junk lenses. We prefer the handmade, curated approach.

But for your second question, we do have a recently updated toolkit called the MDK (Module Developers Kit) which makes it easy to develop modules for Squidoo. Building a module is a great way to get that extra feature you’ve been dying for. Using the MDK requires knowledge of HTML and PHP. We’re still beta testing the new release, but if you’re interested you can contact me directly for a sneak preview.

Q: Gil, what makes a great bug report? what info do you like to see?

G: The first thing I need to know is which account a report is in reference to, and if it pertains to a specific lens. Knowing the time of day the problem first occured can also be helpful. You’d be surprised how many reports are made without the basics.

If you have a screenshot of a problem in progress, you won’t be able to send it when you first submit a bug report, but you can reply to the case and attach it to an email after you hear back from us. If the problem is a showstopper (i.e. urgent), make sure to indicate that so we can get back to you more quickly.

Finally, don’t be afraid to give us “too much” detail. If you think a nugget of information might be worthwhile, it probably is.

Q: You mentioned that soon we’ll have the ability to roll back to previous versions of your lens. How does that work and why do we need it?

G: Let’s face it: every computer program sometimes behaves unexpectedly. Couple that with internet connections that aren’t always reliable, and web browsers that aren’t always compatible, and the occassional bug does pop up. And what about when folks decide to repurpose a lens, only to decide they liked it how it better how it was before? In those cases, having a backup ready to go is safe comfort.

We’ve always given you a way to take an XML backup of your lens, but there’s no way to restore it on to your lens. In the near future we’ll be taking backups automatically, every time you publish. You’ll also have the opportunity to ‘force’ a backup right before you dive in to make some changes. We’ll save the backups on ours servers so you won’t have to worry about keeping track of them, and restoring your lens will be as simple as selecting one of the backups from a list. You’ll even be able to see a preview before you commit to the restore.

Q: Is the bulk of spam lenses still… (whisper) porn?

G: As much as we believe in freedom of speech and in the open web, we have to take a long view of the problem. The biggest source of spam is porn–no question. We’ve de-emphasized X rated content as a result, with harsher punishment for lensmasters who don’t categorize their lenses properly. We have several ways to track down spam, but as always, it’s helpful to have a community like ours helping us out.

Q: And last, a really important one since you’re from New Orleans: Are you going to Mardi Gras?

G: Probably not. I’ll still be carving up the mountains in Colorado, where my snowboard and I are moving to later this week. We can’t wait!