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I was inspired by this presentation by Adam Jacob of Opscode (Chef) and Ezra Zygmuntowicz of Engine Yard:
I encourage every systems administrator, engineer, or architect to watch this. The birth of new systems is presented in three stages: bootstrapping, configuration, and command and control. These stages are analyzed with traditional procedures vs. the vision of Adam and Ezra of a better way. Bootstrapping is facilitated by cloud computing; configuration focuses on expressions that converge a system to a known, useful state; command and control uses messaging to redistribute, heal, and monitor the configured systems. Most importantly, an API needs to be used for every layer to keep the system configuration sustainable. Use a framework instead of the typical one-off administration scripts to ensure that others that are helping and come after you can grow and maintain the system. This also helps in constraining the expression to what is needed instead of being clouded by extra stuff that serves as glue and gears.
After letting this presentation laze around on my tongue, in between my teeth, and generally permeating my sinuses, I realized that I embraced their vision for more than just implementing computer systems:
Imagine something useful and sustainable. Express it. Through your own effort converge on this expression. Observe. What worked? What didn't? How can the expression and effort be improved? What further changes are needed? Iterate through the entire process again. This is how we make things better, how we converge on a sustainable future.
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