Comments on: Did Dreamweaver Determine Your Deployment Method?

By: Adam Cameron

Adam Cameron — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:44:38 +0000

I think it’s inappropriate to be using a code editing tool to be deploying code. Generally when one comes to be deploying code, then it’s being shifted from a dev environment (the only place one should ever be editing code) to a QA, staging, or live environment.

One definitely does NOT want to be using a tool that is specific to changing code to be having anything to do with environments other than dev environments, quite simply because it’s kind of suggesting that “editing code” on the server one is deploying to is part and parcel of the practice. It’s not.

Code deployment should definitely be completely decoupled from the development environment, IMO.

We enforce a specific, decoupled, mostly manual process when “promoting” any code from “dev” to “not dev”. The reason for this is to make the person doing it stop and think about what they’re doing, treat the process with respect, and also know that it’s “kind of” a one way process.

I guess we do all our development locally (on our own workstationns), and we don’t put it on a server of any description until it’s mostly out of the developer’s hands (if poss we get someone other than the developer to deploy it). I would never have an RDS or FTP connection set up in my IDE. It just seems “wrong”.

(obviously all of the above is IMO, and I’m not suggesting everyone should automatically agree with me. I’m just sayin’ how it is ;-)

–
Adam

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:44:12 +0000

we have a change management department. Getting code to our development server is simple using either webdav or SVN.

Getting it to test/staging and then prod is the most painful thing in the world

By: Adam Ness

Adam Ness — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:39:53 +0000

To be honest, I’ve never worked in a CF Shop where we used FTP. We always just use mounted drives/SMB to transfer the files around. Of course, that’s always been in a homogeneous Windows environment, but even in blended Mac/Linux/Windows environments, Samba or NFS allows for the same functionality.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:01:49 +0000

You can automate your FTP with Ant :)

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:00:17 +0000

I guess another question would be… How ofter do you evaluate your processes and look for improvements?

By: Matt Williams

Matt Williams — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:42:42 +0000

I think the server setup you have can determine the deployment method. A basic shared hosting setup is going to have one way (by default) to get files from your workstation to the server: FTP.

If you have never used version control, then learning how to get a repository set up does require some learning.

By: Glyn Jackson

Glyn Jackson — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:33:09 +0000

Glad I got you thinking!

I think an IDE can have an impact on the development process, yes. How you control files, versioning etc is dependence on the tools you use. But an IDE should not be the deciding factor in your whole process that’s just ignorant.

You get a process that works for you, tried and tested over time. We use versioning but leave the live server FTP because at the moment it works well for our in house process.

FTP is still a part of our system just not a whole part and I still need it if I was to use CF Builder over DW

By: Mike Henke

Mike Henke — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:13:27 +0000

Great post. After Glyn Jackson’s, I was thinking it was extreme to have to change a deployment process because of an IDE switch. Now after reading your post, I am thinking the deployment method should be decoupled from the IDE.