Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control
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System Admins often talk about the need for revision control for sys admin tasks, but many people still do not use it and many may not even know what it is and some, especially in the Windows world, may really struggle with wondering how to apply it. OpenSource.com takes a look at the five reasons why system administrators should use revision control. Although it is more like five tips on how to do it well.
How many of you use revision control? And if you do, are you using it in a DevOps or Snowflake administration situation?
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We don't use RC here, even though I've pushed for it since starting. So much wasted energy on "tracking down this version".
Well it's not a version if it has no version number....
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It's much harder for Windows shops that use the GUI instead of text based controls. Windows, in general, is much harder to revision control than UNIX systems. UNIX being text based is so easy to put under revision control. But Windows, you have to be creative. Unless you are already using tools like Ansible, Chef or Puppet.
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Oh I totally agree, but with the digital content we create here, and having 15000 different versions of a near identical file, and watching these guys go back and forth of "which one was one pixel to the left....."
We could really use revision control....
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@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
Oh I totally agree, but with the digital content we create here, and having 15000 different versions of a near identical file, and watching these guys go back and forth of "which one was one pixel to the left....."
We could really use revision control....
You definitely need to get GIT running, then.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
Oh I totally agree, but with the digital content we create here, and having 15000 different versions of a near identical file, and watching these guys go back and forth of "which one was one pixel to the left....."
We could really use revision control....
That is not system administration. That is standard development.
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@JaredBusch said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
Oh I totally agree, but with the digital content we create here, and having 15000 different versions of a near identical file, and watching these guys go back and forth of "which one was one pixel to the left....."
We could really use revision control....
That is not system administration. That is standard development.
Our development team often goes back and forth between versions, or references one file over and over again making minor tweaks, but keeping every change.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@JaredBusch said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
Oh I totally agree, but with the digital content we create here, and having 15000 different versions of a near identical file, and watching these guys go back and forth of "which one was one pixel to the left....."
We could really use revision control....
That is not system administration. That is standard development.
Our development team often goes back and forth between versions, or references one file over and over again making minor tweaks, but keeping every change.
Yup, that's what revision control is for. You have developers who do anything without revision control? Who hired these people?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@JaredBusch said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
Oh I totally agree, but with the digital content we create here, and having 15000 different versions of a near identical file, and watching these guys go back and forth of "which one was one pixel to the left....."
We could really use revision control....
That is not system administration. That is standard development.
Our development team often goes back and forth between versions, or references one file over and over again making minor tweaks, but keeping every change.
Yup, that's what revision control is for. You have developers who do anything without revision control? Who hired these people?
Exactly. Development should alway bne under version control. But the point of my statement was that your issue is not system administration that @scottalanmiller is discussing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@JaredBusch said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
@DustinB3403 said in Why System Administrators Should Use Revision Control:
Oh I totally agree, but with the digital content we create here, and having 15000 different versions of a near identical file, and watching these guys go back and forth of "which one was one pixel to the left....."
We could really use revision control....
That is not system administration. That is standard development.
Our development team often goes back and forth between versions, or references one file over and over again making minor tweaks, but keeping every change.
Yup, that's what revision control is for. You have developers who do anything without revision control? Who hired these people?
The clown master of course...
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Revision control is pretty easy today. And so many free options, even hosted ones. GitLab, BitBucket, GitHub or just run your own Subversion server or whatever.
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Revision control was a huge thing. It's essential anywhere two or more sysadmins are working (real sysadmins, not generalists like me.)
Had a bad experience with it back in the 90s when the German parent company thought they were a special snowflake, and could operate differently than what the internet connections could handle. T1 + transfer engineering drawings = fail, T1 + ship CD + real time software also equals fail. All so they didn't have to maintain two different drawing repositories (even tho the software was able to search many sites.) Noooo, we can't make engineers login to a different site. Silly.
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With even just one system admin, revision control is nice for just tracking what you've done.
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That's a nice aspect of systems like Ansible, they basically force good practices like this.
