Phew! Two weeks ago I was in the middle of one of the most intense working weeks of my life — finishing a website, tying together the order system, sending out beta builds, and dreaming constantly about Coda. Now it's out, and overall, it's gone really well. While there is still a lot of stuff we'd like to add to Coda, what's been most gratifying to us is hearing that people are just as excited about this idea that we've been for the last year. That's a nice thing. Sure, Coda isn't for everybody, but it's nice to know that it can hit that sweet spot for many. ("Coda is amazing! It's like a lightening bolt straight to the chest. And when I came to consciousness I realized how badly I needed Coda but didn't even know it", wrote one effusive user that we love. "i was wondering if i could get a discount on your software if i show you where i spotted a spelling mistake?", said yet another user who we love just as much.)

Anyway, the Coda train is still rolling, but I wanted to record for posterity a couple of interesting "launch numbers".

27 Mbit: Peak Web Throughput

Our colocation facility — and our lone Xserve G5 — held up as amazingly as ever. We did have continual problems with MySQL stalling under duress, which really sucked, but Apache handled the incoming flurry of web requests with aplomb.



Actually, 27 Mbit of peak traffic was not too bad, overall. Why wasn't it way higher? Well...

643 GB: Amazon S3 Traffic

...for the first time ever, we offloaded the bulk of our file transfer needs — the Coda download itself — to Amazon S3.

The result? Amazon pretty much saved our e-asses. We just threw the file up on Amazon S3 (possibly using a certain development build of a certain file transfer client), and rewrote the link to point to S3. That's all. There's nothing worse than seeing the Apache process list fill up with processes that nothing more than long downloads, as those requests could be doing many other things like, for example, allowing someone to buy the program. It was great to off-load the heavy lifting and never have to think about it again.

So, all told, users downloaded 643 GB worth of Coda in the last seven days. The total bill? $128. Mellow.

1,748: E-Mail Messages

When we release major updates, I like to take over the support box for a week or two. It gives me a very real, direct sense of how the app is being received, what the major issues are, and what people really want in the future. (Plus, I enjoy talking.)

The final score? Of the 1,748 e-mails we've received in the last week, I've replied to 1,638 so far.

I actually enjoy it — my wrists, not so much.

Top requests: Subversion. Find/Replace and Compare Differences across many files. Improved local previewing. Draggable tabs. More languages; mainly ASP, JSP, and ColdFusion. Tag balancing. Etc. Noted!

Now that the support velocity has slowed to normal, today I'll hand the box over to the ever-capable Tim.

One: Congratulatory Snack Pack

The talented and thoughtful Dan Messing of Stunt Software, a Friend of Panic, just sent over some Zany Canadian Candy / Sucrerie Canadienne Folle. I don't suspect it'll take long to eat it all.


Thanks so much, Mr. Messing!

Next Up: 1.0.1

We're just now putting the finishing touches on Coda 1.0.1. Of course, if you set Coda to automatically download and install updates, you won't have to do a thing — just use Coda, and we'll take care of the updating for you! Otherwise, keep an eye on the Panic website, and thanks so much for trying Coda and giving us your thoughts. Onward!