More on CD with Jenkins, Vagrant and Docker

More on CD with Jenkins, Vagrant and Docker:

1. http://technologyconversations.com/2014/04/29/continuous-delivery-introduction-to-concepts-and-tools/
2. http://technologyconversations.com/2014/05/06/continuous-delivery-ci-tools-setup/
3. http://technologyconversations.com/2014/05/20/continuous-delivery-static-analysis/

And more to come...

Tnx Dennis!

Postmortem

What should we do when something goes terribly wrong?

how-to-run-a-postmortem-with-humans-not-robots-velocity

Programming Sucks

This is a world where people eschew sex to write a programming language for orangutans. All programmers are forcing their brains to do things brains were never meant to do in a situation they can never make better, ten to fifteen hours a day, five to seven days a week, and every one of them is slowly going mad.

See: http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

Ansible for CD

I'm working on putting down a DTAP environment, but i want to skip the classic DTAP where there is a lot of manual work and time gained in a scrum process is wasted in the waterfall way of working.

So i need some automation there. Automating means that i want users to be able to go to a website, select (or create) an environment and install the software that should be tested.

I had a look at Puppet and set up a test between two VBox instances. Is working with not too much work, but i don't like it. Seems a bit of a steep learning curve.
Then someone pointed out Ansible and i started to watch the video from last PyConn: http://www.ansible.com/resources. I'm already convinced this is the tool i need. And i'm happy to set up a prototype implementation!

Python tricks

Sahand Saba has compiled a list of some 30 Python Language Features and Tricks You May Not Know About. Chances are you know some, most of them are very interesting!

http://sahandsaba.com/thirty-python-language-features-and-tricks-you-may-not-know.html

Continuous Delivery and Feature Toggle

So you want DTAP? Nice, but what about a Continuous Delivery (CD) environment? That will bring more speed in the delivery process, why wait till the end of a sprint to deliver when you can do it in an instant. Adding business value when you are done!

But what about all outstanding changes? When you want to avoid merging hell, there is another way to go, it's called Feature Toggle. Just keep a file with toggles (true or false) on functionality and business rules and only activate them when you are really done.

http://martinfowler.com/bliki/FeatureToggle.html

What is DTAP?

DTAP by Cal Evans:

http://www.phparch.com/2009/07/professional-programming-dtap-–-part-1-what-is-dtap/

And:

http://www.phparch.com/2009/07/professional-programming-dtap-–-part-2-other-moving-pieces/


Tnx Cal!

75 is the max!

There are many discussions about line length in coding. The best explanation can be found here: http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/276

All on mixins

I'm used to program to an interface, this makes my code loosely coupled and very extendable. Then I read about mixins and I started to frown. Mixins are classes that define and implement methods so they can be used to add methods on the fly to a new class. Sounds interesting doesn't it?

Start reading: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4540

Done reading? Fond of mixins? Did you spot any problems?

Read on: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=246341
And on: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=246483
Last one: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=254367

Now it sounds evil, doesn't it? My conclusion is that mixins are a great way to implement generic behaviour but overuse comes easily. Before using a mixin, try thinking of an alternative!