Reading up on Campfire
4 deep · digging since dec 02, 25
- 37signals Isn't Smarter Than You, But They Are Different
37signals achieves clean code by keeping teams small, cutting scope, and hiring top engineers, a strategy most companies cannot adopt due to feature-driven revenue models.
- Vanilla CSS is all you need
37signals builds complex web apps with vanilla CSS, no build tools, proving modern CSS features are sufficient for production.
Takes
We just launched a feature we began exploring a decade+ ago, but never released it. It was originally destined for Campfire, our chat tool. The feature is called Bonfire. Now that Campfire is built into Basecamp, Bonfire belongs there. And today it's live for all Basecamp 5 customers. What's Bonfire? I put together a short video to show you what it is and how it works:
@jasonfried
Unlike Campfire, where we shared a zero-history copy of the codebase, Fizzy's public codebase has the entire life of the product development cycle out in the open. 1,792 pull requests of historical fun and insight into how we make things at 37signals! https://t.co/b0PrQBfJGC
@dhh