Alright, folks, gather ’round! Today, I’m gonna walk you through my little adventure with something called Matt Wilkinson Tugboat. Now, I’m no tech guru, but I like tinkering, and this Tugboat thing seemed pretty neat, so I dove in.
Getting Started
First things first, I had to figure out what this Tugboat even was. Turns out, it’s a tool to preview changes, like, before you actually make them live. Good for avoiding those “oops” moments, you know?
So, I went and found this Matt Wilkinson’s Tugboat thing. My goal for using it was to make the QA testing process faster.
The Setup Shuffle
I installed the Tugboat, nothing difficult there.
- Install Tugboat CLI. Figured out the commands, and honestly, it wasn’t rocket science.
- Used my project. Hooked up my project, which was, thankfully, pretty straightforward since they had some decent instructions.
Making it Work
I followed the configuration steps. It created some config files, and that was a bit of a head-scratcher, not gonna lie. Spent some time poking around, making sure everything was pointing where it should be.
Pushing and Praying: I made a small change to my code, nothing crazy, just to test the waters. Then, I “pushed” it to Tugboat – basically, told it, “Hey, check out this new stuff!”
Waiting Game: Tugboat started doing its thing, building a preview. Took a few minutes. Good time for a coffee break.
The Big Reveal!
It generated the preview. Tugboat gave me a link to this preview environment. Clicked it, and bam! There was my change, live and in color, but not actually live live, you get me? It was like a little sandbox version of my project.
Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3: I poked around the preview, clicked all the buttons, made sure nothing exploded. All good! It’s kind of cool seeing your changes without messing up the real thing.
Final Thoughts
So, that’s my Tugboat story. It wasn’t the smoothest ride ever, but I got it working, and I can definitely see how this could be super useful. No more crossing your fingers and hoping for the best when you update your project. It lets you see changes first.
If you’re like me, someone who likes to play it safe, you might want to give Tugboat a try. Just be prepared for a little bit of a learning curve, but hey, that’s half the fun, right?
