We run a large scale and highly visible website. This site is updated frequently, and is very complex. So far the way the site is updated is using subversion where the latest code is checked out into the public servers – after much testing, of course.
A typical release goes something like this:
checkout code from subversion
run a few scripts to modify database and generate intermediate files
generate various connections between site and underlying software
update underlying software
One problem with this approach is inevitably developers tend to push last minute fixes while in testing mode. It’s easy to update the code with a svn co but the code always tends to diverge and one fix usually leads to other bugs! Another issue is that each time a release is made a long list of complicated – and different each time – steps have to be followed. There are many other issues as well that I won’t go into right now, but suffice to say each release is as easy as pulling your own tooth!
So, one idea to cut down on all this trouble is to build a deb package for each release. This essentially locks down development, since each code change involves building a new package. I’m also fairly certain it will make life in the software lifecycle much easier.
And the debianized release would go like this:
apt-get install website package
apt-get install underlying software
Or even simpler if I made the website package depend on the underlying stuff:
apt-get install website package
Now only if I could get the decision makers to agree.
The desktop wars have been heating up since the arrival of ubuntu on the scene. There’s been many articles stating that Linux has arrived on the desktop and so on. But last month while at an open source conference I realized that aside from ideological battles, balance is what’s needed. My friend had a laptop running the latest version of Ubuntu, he quickly ran into trouble when doing something as simple as a hibernate and ended up having to reinstall the OS to fix the problem.
So what do I want to say here? Well, to me where open source makes sense is in the enterprise. A place where the cost of software is minimized and the benefits of open source are quickly realized. But on the desktop, where I don’t have time to deal with unsupported hardware or small issues it makes no difference! So at this moment, the deciding factor should be what runs what I need to run painlessly and seamlessly…
Balatarin ( Farsi: بالاترین ) is a farsi website dedicated to social information sharing and link aggregation. This site is much like digg but mostly for the Iranian internet sphere. (wikipedia article)
A couple of days ago, the site was hacked (most likely their DNS or the registrar info) and suddenly the importance of this site to Iranian internet usersbecame quite apparent.
Well, the good news is that the site owners have now gained control of the site. It will come back soon, but in the meantime here’s the message on the front page:
