For a long time now, I have been wanting to create a business for myself. I always have had a lot of ideas, but as soon as I started working on one, I found that: Someone else already did something very similar It is much harder than I anticipated I don’t know where to start I don’t know that I am the right person to do it Now, I know that all of those are just excuses, and that until I persist in one idea for at least a few months, very consistently, I will not really be able to see any results. Maybe a few comments here and there, a few people that will like what I did, but nothing concrete.

Using tests during development to keep you code tidy 🔗As I was working on a project, while developing a new function, I noticed that I was modifying some existing code to be able to test it. Doing it this way seemed like a very bad idea, so I looked for a better way to do it. But let’s start an insanely simple example, to clarify what I’m saying. We start with a basic program, an extraString function and a main.

We always speak about automating everything, especially in the tech world where everything goes so fast. And I agree that if you can, you should automate processes as much as you can. But there is value in doing things manually sometimes. The first value is for learning. If you are learning a new technology you will have to put the work, and manually tweak code, settings until you really understand how it works. Without going through the process, you will just scratch the surface of what you are learning.

When deploying Virtual Appliances (VA), you want the process to be automated and repeatable, not just a one shot configured and exported manually. Thanks to Packer, automating this is just a question of creating a JSON configuration file and letting it do its magic. Packer is used by giving it an ISO image of a base distribution, installing the distribution and running the modifications you want. This is good when creating new VAs, but what can you do if you already have an existing one?

— Hi ! I'm Marin ! I write mostly about devops ideas and creativity, although a lot of old posts might not fit this mold. I believe the infrastructure to deploy software, as well as the software itself, should be as simple as possible, and as complicated as necessary. Which basically means for me that you probably don't need microservices. I believe that creativity is one of the main source in one's life happiness, and that it is necessary to a good life.