Automate, Automate, AUTOMATE!

A presentation by @stuherbert  for @GanbaroDigital Automate, Automate, AUTOMATE! An
Introduction For Developers

Industry veteran: architect, engineer, leader, manager, mentor F/OSS contributor since
1994 Talking and writing about PHP since 2004 Chief Software Archaeologist Building Quality @GanbaroDigital About Stuart

Follow me I do tweet a lot about non-tech stuff
though :) @stuherbert

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? What automation do you use today?

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? Why do you use automation?

@GanbaroDigital https://unsplash.com/photos/cDwZ40Lj9eo Story #1: Cannot Compile

@GanbaroDigital Why We Automate

@GanbaroDigital Automation is often introduced to help with ...

@GanbaroDigital https://unsplash.com/photos/mqpMdf1MeRE Common Practices

@GanbaroDigital https://unsplash.com/photos/uYO30M0NND4 De-skill

@GanbaroDigital https://unsplash.com/photos/iS0Aq3QPsJ4 Boredom

@GanbaroDigital https://ﬂic.kr/p/8taMDz Herding Cats

@GanbaroDigital I'm a great believer in working backwards from outcomes.

@GanbaroDigital https://unsplash.com/photos/NXt5PrOb_7U Guiding Direction

@GanbaroDigital In the last 5 years, I've adopted ONE guiding
principle behind ALL my automation.

@GanbaroDigital “ Automation should assist us to iterate faster.

@GanbaroDigital “ Catch it early, catch it often.

@GanbaroDigital “ Any automation that slows us down should be
removed.

@GanbaroDigital https://ﬂic.kr/p/pdx99h A Scenic Tour

@GanbaroDigital The development workﬂow is often described as a pipeline.

@GanbaroDigital Development

@GanbaroDigital Development Integration

@GanbaroDigital Development Integration Testing

@GanbaroDigital Development Integration Testing Deployment

@GanbaroDigital It's rarely a neat pipeline in practice.

@GanbaroDigital Development Integration Testing Deployment

@GanbaroDigital Testing Deployment Integration Coding + many more!

@GanbaroDigital Deployment Integration Coding w/ Local Tests Coding Testing

@GanbaroDigital Integration Coding w/ Feature Tests or Manual Testing Coding
Testing Deployment

@GanbaroDigital Deployment Daily Integration With Local Tests Coding Testing Integration

@GanbaroDigital Daily Integration With Feature Tests or Manual Testing Coding
Testing Integration Deployment

@GanbaroDigital Testing Integration Coding w/ No Testing Coding Deployment

@GanbaroDigital The development workﬂow happens in many places.

@GanbaroDigital Development Integration Testing Deployment Desktops, laptops,   cloud workspaces
/ VDM

/ VDM above & on CI services

/ VDM above & on CI services same as above

/ VDM above & on CI services same as above same as above

@GanbaroDigital When you introduce automation, make sure that it doesn't
reduce ﬂexibility.

@GanbaroDigital Always remember that you'll still need to make emergency
releases too!

@GanbaroDigital There are no speciﬁc tools in this talk. Tools
come and go.

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? What automation can we use to write
code faster?

@GanbaroDigital 1. Code completion

@GanbaroDigital 2. Refactoring tools

@GanbaroDigital 3. Code formatting

@GanbaroDigital IDE Tools For Automation 1. Code completion 2. Refactoring
help 3. Code formatting

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? What about code generation?

@GanbaroDigital Many frameworks will provide template / skeleton generators.

@GanbaroDigital Some frameworks will rewrite your code to help you
upgrade.

@GanbaroDigital Integration

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? What is integration?

@GanbaroDigital “ Integration is how you deliver into your team's
collective work.

@GanbaroDigital “Integration is adding your changes to everyone else's and
proving you haven't broken anything.

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? How can automation help us deliver quicker?

@GanbaroDigital A CI server (or service) can automate checking a
merge request.

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? If we have a CI server, what
kinds of checks can we automate?

@GanbaroDigital 1. Reproducible builds

@GanbaroDigital 2. Unit tests pass

@GanbaroDigital 3. Gather code metrics

@GanbaroDigital 4. Static code analysis

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? How many of these automated tasks help
us deliver quicker?

@GanbaroDigital Integration Automation 1. Reproducible builds 2. Unit tests pass
3. Gather code metrics 4. Static code analysis

@GanbaroDigital “ The more work a CI server does the
more it becomes your bottleneck.

@GanbaroDigital “ A CI server is a shared resource. It's
everyone's bottleneck.

@GanbaroDigital https://xkcd.com/303/

@GanbaroDigital “ Catch it early, catch it often.

@GanbaroDigital Thanks to git, we can test our integration locally
every day.

@GanbaroDigital Thanks to Docker, we can run them all in
an isolated environment locally whenever we want.

@GanbaroDigital We'll come back to this towards the end of
the talk.

@GanbaroDigital If integration automation is slow on the CI server,
it'll be slow on your dev machine too.

@GanbaroDigital Make sure each developer can run all the integration
checks on their dev machine ... ... and that they do so.

@GanbaroDigital “ You can't ﬁx people problems with technical solutions.

@GanbaroDigital https://unsplash.com/photos/ZSrgSSGJiQs Story #2 The Best Metrics

@GanbaroDigital Testing

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? What is testing?

@GanbaroDigital “ Testing is the act of proving that your
code actually does what you think it does.

@GanbaroDigital In my experience, many developers mis-read their code.

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? How does testing help us iterate faster?

@GanbaroDigital “ Testing helps us reduce rework.

@GanbaroDigital Rework is expensive.

@GanbaroDigital Design Dev Test Live If errors in one phase
cost x3 to ﬁx in the next:

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? What testing can we automate?

@GanbaroDigital 1. Unit tests

@GanbaroDigital 2. Integration tests

@GanbaroDigital 3. Functional tests

@GanbaroDigital 4. Non-functional tests

@GanbaroDigital 5. Acceptance tests

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? Which of these help us iterate faster?

@GanbaroDigital Automated Testing 1. Unit tests 2. Integration tests 3.
Functional tests 4. Non-functional tests 5. Acceptance tests

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? Do all the test approaches help us
all the time?

@GanbaroDigital https://unsplash.com/photos/IClZBVw5W5A Right Tool For Each Job

@GanbaroDigital “ Unit tests help us develop libraries faster.

@GanbaroDigital “ Functional tests help us develop the app or
API faster.

@GanbaroDigital “ Acceptance tests help us invoice faster.

@GanbaroDigital https://unsplash.com/photos/ZSrgSSGJiQs Story #2 The Best Metrics

@GanbaroDigital The testing failed to catch errors from the design
phase.

@GanbaroDigital The Testing Fell Short 1. Over-reliance on unit tests
w/ mocks 2. Manual functional testing 3. No representative environment to test within

@GanbaroDigital Deployment

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? How can automating deployment help us iterate
faster?

@GanbaroDigital We need somewhere to run and test our code.

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? Can you spin up a representative environment?

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? Can you spin one up on your
dev box?

@GanbaroDigital Two Layers of Deployment 1. Representative environment 2. Deploying
code into that environment

@GanbaroDigital Don't merge them into a single activity.

@GanbaroDigital ?? ?? How do you automate your deployment today?

@GanbaroDigital 1. GitOps

@GanbaroDigital 2. Shell scripts

@GanbaroDigital 3. Orchestration tools

@GanbaroDigital Deployment Automation 1. GitOps 2. Shell scripts 3. Orchestration
tools

@GanbaroDigital GitOps is normally* backed by a CI/CD box and
orchestration tools. Can you use those to deploy locally too?

@GanbaroDigital Shell scripts are quick and dirty. They break down
in a mixed O/S environment.

@GanbaroDigital It takes a lot of time to automate deployments
using orchestration tools.

@GanbaroDigital “ Code rots over time. Automation is code.

@GanbaroDigital “ Automation doesn't transfer between paradigm changes.

@GanbaroDigital

Thank You Can We Help You? A presentation by @stuherbert 
for @GanbaroDigital

Automate, Automate, AUTOMATE!

Automate, Automate, AUTOMATE!

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