Automating server build-out with Module::Build
At Pythian, we have one application that is composed of several components, the deployment of which needs to conform to our slightly peculiar server setup. Until recently, this required manually deploying each component. I did this a couple weeks ago, and it took me something like 40 hours to figure out and complete. As I went, I started reading up on Module::Build, trying to figure out how to automate as much as possible. It turns out that this core module gives us a surprisingly powerful tool for customized deployment. First, it will help to understand a few aspects of how our code is deployed.
Posted: Nov 8, 2012
Tags: deployment linux module-build perl pythian
On studying programming and programmers
In university, we do a lot of waterfall in courses with project work. It isn’t the kind of thing a student would do (to) themselves, so professors feel obligated to give us that experience in class. Research shows that both business and recent graduates wish they’d been taught agile development methodologies in university and college, but course content always lags behind.
At Pythian, we used a mostly-Scrum methodology, with all the benefits and challenges that entails.