Tag: buddies

I tell my co-workers about who should be their best buddies. That term, the way I use it in this context, isn’t for people, but items – tools or techniques – that they should make themselves highly familiar with and which will make their daily chores better. Then there are the enemies, or rather, just one at the moment. Enemies again are tools that they need to battle with on a daily basis, a necessary evil.

I say my second buddy is my current Configuration Management tool. He will get you out of sticky situations. Don’t like the code you just wrote? Revert. Who broke the build? Blame. Need to explore alternatives? Branch. Need to deliver? Tag and release. A good CM tool is just the best.

My one and only enemy is Jenkins. It’s a Continuous Integration server. It is opaque to me. It’s got buttons that run jobs. But what they do? I don’t know. Then there are the happy weather, the sad weather, and the stormy skies. Stormy is bad. It always seems to be that.

Jenkins: The Definitive Guide is a book which I hope will make me understand Jenkins. And use it correctly. Eventually, the enemy will be an ally.

Git In Practice is a book to make my second good buddy a good buddy again. Lately, he’s been punching me in the face. I need to know why.