Deployment

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi,

Deployment involves many issues of concern to every CB adopter.

I've started this thread with hope that we can explore the issues, expand the wiki on relevant topics and, perhaps, develop code to make deployment easier and safer for all.

Here are some of the issues. No doubt there are more:

- Remote vs. local deployment
- Dedicated server vs. VPS vs. cloud
- Security
- Static vs. dynamic DNS provisioning
- Reverse proxy configuration
- Multi-server installation and configuration
- Backup
- Deployment automation
- Server monitoring and maintenance

So four questions:

1) What are the most crucial issues involved in deployment?
2) What would a checklist for secure, efficient deployment look like?
3) What can we contribute to the wiki to make all issues of deployment easier for the noobie?
4) Can we develop useful code utilities to make deployment of CB and CB apps easier and safer for all?

Best wishes,

LRP

*********************************************
My books:

THE GOSPEL OF ASHES
Strength is not enough. Do they have the courage and the
cunning? Can they survive long enough to save the lives
of millions - March 2012 release

FREEIN' PANCHO
It takes a community to help a troubled boy find his way

AYA TAKEO
Star-crossed love, war and power in an alternative universe

Available through Amazon or by request
from your favorite bookstore

Websites:

freeinpancho.com
ayatakeo.com

**********************************************

[Jose Luis Gordo Romero]

I think you are trying to attack too many things at once. 

One thing is the stack (ex. so, erl, balancers/proxy, ...) and their automation including scaling (ex. chef), other the deployment strategy (git/capistrano, migration task, ...) and other monitoring (like jmx in java).

For now I'm happy with a simple capistrano recipe (in a separate project) that fetchs-git/handles config/compiles/checks/reloads on every node of the cluster. 

I known that is not erlang-friendly and also highly inefficient, OTP packaging can be our friend here, but requires another step in the rebarization process.

Interesting topic!

--

Jose Luis Gordo Romero

@jgordor - http://www.freemindsystems.com

2012/2/10 <ll...@writersglen.com>

[JM]

Also, one thing lacking I think is a more complete config file with dev / staging / prod configs ( except if I'm wrong I've not used the latest latest version in prod ).

By the way i've deployed recently a major project (LoveRepublik.com) based on CB + ejabberd (handling real time messaging, chat, session and authentication) + solr and MySQL.

It's deployed on EC2.

Envoyé de mon iPhone

[Evan Miller]

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 1:10 PM, JM <thew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, one thing lacking I think is a more complete config file with dev /
> staging / prod configs ( except if I'm wrong I've not used the latest latest
> version in prod ).
> By the way i've deployed recently a major project (LoveRepublik.com) based
> on CB + ejabberd (handling real time messaging, chat, session and
> authentication) + solr and MySQL.
> It's deployed on EC2.

Wow!! Congrats!

--
Evan Miller
http://www.evanmiller.org/

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Jose,

Thanks. I'll look into capistrano. Looks interesting.

But I, for one, need to know much more about all the issues surrounding deployment. How can we factor the topics to stimulate constructive discussion?

Thanks,

LRP

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jose Luis Gordo Romero" <jgo...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 1:59pm
To: chica...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Deployment

I think you are trying to attack too many things at once.

One thing is the stack (ex. so, erl, balancers/proxy, ...) and their
automation including scaling (ex. chef), other the deployment strategy
(git/capistrano, migration task, ...) and other monitoring (like jmx in
java).

For now I'm happy with a simple capistrano recipe (in a separate project)
that fetchs-git/handles config/compiles/checks/reloads on every node of the
cluster.

I known that is not erlang-friendly and also highly inefficient, OTP
packaging can be our friend here, but requires another step in the
rebarization process.

Interesting topic!

--
Jose Luis Gordo Romero

@jgordor <http://twitter.com/jgordor> - http://www.freemindsystems.com

[Ben G.]

There is already a local server in every boss project, just run ./
start_dev.sh
I can't really think of anything else you'd need for that, but maybe
your thinking of something else?

for remote deploy you can break the problem into:
1. init
2. update
3. rollback
4. destroy

There is already a wiki page with recommended install steps here:
https://github.com/evanmiller/ChicagoBoss/wiki/Deploy
Anyone can add their own experiences

Judging by the new roadmap page:
https://github.com/evanmiller/ChicagoBoss/wiki/Roadmap
I think CB is already poised to implement some update and rollback
features. And as you would expect from Evan, very much by-the-book OTP
principles:
http://www.erlang.org/doc/design_principles/release_handling.html


destroying an app will be project specific, no way around that, that I
can tell

I think for my self, I would try to setup a rebar script that pulls
from github(or my own private git repo). That way in a multi server
environment, they can all update from a single source or pull on older
git commit for rollback.
I'd still have to manually run a single update command on each server
but I can live with that for now. I'm not entirely sure if fully
automated updates are the best idea ATM, but I suppose one could:
1. add a feature to the admin panel if he wanted,
2. add a new "propogate-recompile-latest" or some such flag to init.sh


Backups are a database concept and should be handled at that level. We
use SCM for apps

Monitoring deserves it's own topic

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Ben,

Many thanks. This thoughtful reply is very helpful.

Maybe I'm over complicating things.

Beyond a few simple sites (ayatakeo.com (VPS) and fromtheglen.com:8000 (dedicated server - still working on it. Hope to bring it over to CB)), I don't have experience with heavy-duty deployment. But I have much that I want to do in the near future so want to be efficient and reliable. And I'm conscious of the many security risks lurking in the shadows of Cyberspace.

> There is already a local server in every boss project, just run ./
> start_dev.sh

Yes, I'm using that locally. Exploring Nginx as a reverse proxy when I start deploying current work under CB.

Why? I'm thinking tighter security, faster response to static resource requests and, for awhile, I may need to run another web server in parallel to CB. Am I wrong in my thinking?

I guess what I'm kind of looking for are best practices.

> There is already a wiki page with recommended install steps here:
> https://github.com/evanmiller/ChicagoBoss/wiki/Deploy
> Anyone can add their own experiences

I do have an item or two to add to the wiki. Just need to find time to learn the mark-up and method. Will get to that as soon as I get my new book out.

> I think CB is already poised to implement some update and rollback
> features. And as you would expect from Evan

Yeaaa CB! An answer to a spare-time techie's prayers.

I have been studying and working with Rebar. It makes OTP sooo much easier.

> destroying an app will be project specific, no way around that, that I
> can tell

That I can manage. Have done it several times unintentionally.

> I would try to setup a rebar script that pulls from github(or my own
> private git repo).

This is very helpful. As soon as I can make time I'll try something like it and post whatever useful comes out on the wiki.

> Backups are a database concept and should be handled at that level. We
> use SCM for apps

I'm using rsync at present. Wiped out some very precious files last year with a dunderheaded rsync command. Works OK now, but scares me silly every time I think about it. This is one reason why I, as an amateur, cherish good user documentation. The quality of the user docs is number one on my why-I-like-CB list.

Monitoring deserves it's own topic

Perhaps down the road we can pick this one up again.

Ben, related to your interest in multi-server deployment---

A wispy thought has been circulating in my head involving embedded Erlang, Chicago Boss (maybe), and the new low-power-consumption, low-cost server technologies in the wind (See http://www.calxeda.com/ for one of the more out-edge ideas; maybe Rasbperry Pi or similar for really cheap).

So question: Do you have a sense of how minimalistic an Erlang/CB provisioned server can be yet still provide decent, relatively low-load performance?

I'm thinking that if the hardware is cheap enough we can start paralleling servers ala Erlang concurrency and do some interesting things.

Thanks again and all the best,

LRP

[Evan Miller]

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Ben G. <bng...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There is already a local server in every boss project, just run ./
> start_dev.sh
> I can't really think of anything else you'd need for that, but maybe
> your thinking of something else?
>
> for remote deploy you can break the problem into:
> 1. init
> 2. update
> 3. rollback
> 4. destroy
>
> There is already a wiki page with recommended install steps here:
> https://github.com/evanmiller/ChicagoBoss/wiki/Deploy
> Anyone can add their own experiences
>
> Judging by the new roadmap page:
> https://github.com/evanmiller/ChicagoBoss/wiki/Roadmap
> I think CB is already poised to implement some update and rollback
> features. And as you would expect from Evan, very much by-the-book OTP
> principles:
> http://www.erlang.org/doc/design_principles/release_handling.html
>

I think this better summarizes my philosophy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7llLFbV97bs

Happy friday everyone

--
Evan Miller
http://www.evanmiller.org/

[Evan Miller]

I'm very interested in these developments, and Erlang is certainly
poised to take advantage of these new ARM-based servers. (HiPE
supports ARM, and embedded Erlang has had tons of investment in it
over the years.) If you use Mnesia and SSDs then your RAM requirements
will be quite small, and for low loads CPU usage will be negligible.
If you don't need extensive logging then you might get away with say a
500 MHz chip, 64 MB of RAM (less?), and 256 MB of flash memory. I
wonder what the virtualization situation is on these Moonshot servers.

I think you are correct that Erlang's parallelism will be especially
appealing as ARM clusters become economical.

--
Evan Miller
http://www.evanmiller.org/

[Ben G.]

wow, lots of questions. I'll attempt to answer but you have asked a
few thing way out of my league, not that that's ever stopped me from
having an opinion :)

>
> Beyond a few simple sites (ayatakeo.com (VPS) and fromtheglen.com:8000 (dedicated server - still working on it. Hope to bring it over to CB)), I don't have experience with heavy-duty deployment. But I have much that I want to do in the near future so want to be efficient and reliable. And I'm conscious of the many security risks lurking in the shadows of Cyberspace.

I wouldn't worry about security "too" much. Your major security
concerns will be in the form of SQL injection and XSS (cross site
scripting) and both of those are easy to keep track of once you
understand the basics

> Why? I'm thinking tighter security, faster response to static resource requests and, for awhile, I may need to run another web server in parallel to CB. Am I wrong in my thinking?

sounds like you are prematurely optimizing. How many page requests a
months do you get now? A single server will take you quite a long
ways.

once you have the need to move beyond a single server you will have to
implement an architecture change.
1. separate dedicated central database server
2. separate CDN server(or service) for images and media
3. web server for handling pages

app at that scale will be hampered by the database throughput. So
choosing a proper DB and schema will be of magnitude greater
importance than choosing your programming language.

>
> I guess what I'm kind of looking for are best practices.
>

There are lots and lots of those

>

>
> > destroying an app will be project specific, no way around that, that I
> > can tell
>
> That I can manage. Have done it several times unintentionally.
>
> > I would try to setup a rebar script that pulls from github(or my own
> > private git repo).
>
> This is very helpful. As soon as I can make time I'll try something like it and post whatever useful comes out on the wiki.

I posted it elsewhere, but there's no harm in repeating
Erlang Factory had a talk on deploying with Chef + Rebar wich is an
excellent pattern. It also talks a smidge on Hot-Code deployment which
is a erlang specific advantage I'm not used to, but I hope to learn
ASAP
http://www.erlang-factory.com/conference/SFBay2011/speakers/JoeWilliams

>
> > Backups are a database concept and should be handled at that level. We
> > use SCM for apps
>
> I'm using rsync at present. Wiped out some very precious files last year with a dunderheaded rsync command. Works OK now, but scares me silly every time I think about it. This is one reason why I, as an amateur, cherish good user documentation. The quality of the user docs is number one on my why-I-like-CB list.

Rsync is not an SCM. I'm talking about something like git, mercurial,
bazaar, svn, etc

>
> Ben, related to your interest in multi-server deployment---
>

> A wispy thought has been circulating in my head involving embedded Erlang, Chicago Boss (maybe), and the new low-power-consumption, low-cost server technologies in the wind (Seehttp://www.calxeda.com/for one of the more out-edge ideas; maybe Rasbperry Pi or similar for really cheap).

>
> So question: Do you have a sense of how minimalistic an Erlang/CB provisioned server can be yet still provide decent, relatively low-load performance?
>
> I'm thinking that if the hardware is cheap enough we can start paralleling servers ala Erlang concurrency and do some interesting things.
>

I personally haven't tried to run erlang code on anything smaller than
a 128mb ram server here: test.wishfounry.info which so far I haven't
crashed(but your welcome to try, just let me know about it) and
outperforms wordpress installs at 5 times the hardware cost(this only
costs me $2/month)

I don't recommend you waste too much time on the ultra minimalist side
of things though. It's stepping over dollars to save pennies
If your trying to be just plain cheap then try: http://www.lowendbox.com/
or you can try some free plans from app engine, heroku, nodester,
joyent, etc.
Or maybe one of the members here will sell you some space(maybe
include some setup to get you rolling?)

Google changed the hardware world's trends when they announced some
years ago that they were "upgrading" to older hardware because the
energy costs more than the hardware. Ever since then we've had many
"commodity hardware" based platforms that quite frankly have been
underwhelming and have left me with an "I'll believe it when I see
it" attitude towards low end tech in the server world.

But, if your really bent on trying for really low resource usage. Then
avoid databases and prefer static content everywhere possible. Even go
for compiling the pages on your local and only posting static pages to
the server. Run no server code unless absolutely neccessary, Disk
space is cheap, RAM is expensive, etc.

[Ben G.]

Nice!!

On Feb 10, 4:17 pm, Evan Miller <emmil...@gmail.com> wrote:

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Evan,

> I'm very interested in these developments, and Erlang is certainly
> poised to take advantage of these new ARM-based servers.

Have you spotted any low-cost boards/boxes that are particularly well-suited for experimentation?

Best,

L.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Evan Miller" <emmi...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 7:53pm
To: chica...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Deployment

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Ben,

>> I may need to run another web server in parallel to CB. Am I wrong in my thinking?

> sounds like you are prematurely optimizing. How many page requests a
months do you get now? A single server will take you quite a long
ways.

I didn't express this well. I meant to say that I need to run Zotonic in parallel with CB and static sites for awhile until I can move content over from Zotonic to CB.

Incidentally, this is not to say anything negative about Zotonic. There are just too many moving parts in Zotonic for my feeble brain. I can't grasp how they fit together sufficiently to feel like I can fix things if they break.

So my set-up would be:

Nginx -->

-- Static 1
-- Static 2...N
-- CB (with multiple sites).
-- Zotonic

This all on one hardware server.

I'd like to be able to call each of them from unique domain names; but cross-link internally from one to another. I've got the Nginx virtual host config worked out on localhost. My one attempt at cross-linking failed. I just need to spend a bit more time on it.

Thanks much,

LRP

-----Original Message-----
From: "Ben G." <bng...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 10:19pm
To: "ChicagoBoss" <chica...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Deployment

[Hwa, Yang Jerng]

Ignore this note if you're concerned only about depoying production servers. This note below is applicable only for setting up a development/testing/training environment

From a marketing point of view - I think it would greatly reduce the accessibility barrier to Erlang(et cetera) if there was something like EasyPHP, an EasyErlang, which compromises performance in the interest of aiding broader adoption. If I understand it correctly, the whole EasyPHP stack can sit on a USB drive and be run from it by different machines.

Jerng  

--
Jerng

---
Yang Jerng HWA
+6 016 235 2931
Kuala Lumpur (GMT +8:00)

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Hwa,

Reliability and scalability are Erlang strengths.

Erlang IS easy to learn--- Excellent documentation, texts, on-line tutorials, supportive community, training consultancies

Rebar makes it easy to document, test, and deploy Erlang.

Erlang can fit on a USB drive. For extreme case see: http://www.erlang-embedded.com/

Erlang plays well with other languages.

Erlang does require a different mindset than you may be used to. Once you grasp it though, it's and easy and productive way to program.

Chicago Boss is Erlang.

Chicago Boss has superior user documentation.

Chicago Boss is fast restructuring under Rebar.

I'd suggest: Learn You Some Erlang for the Great Good ---

http://learnyousomeerlang.com/

All the best,

LRP

[Evan Miller]

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 12:41 AM, <ll...@writersglen.com> wrote:
> Hi Evan,
>
>> I'm very interested in these developments, and Erlang is certainly
>> poised to take advantage of these new ARM-based servers.
>
> Have you spotted any low-cost boards/boxes that are particularly well-suited for experimentation?

I have not. From my understanding the server-class boards won't be
available at retail for a while.

Evan

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi,

I picked up four Pogoplug V2 for experimentation -- $25/ea.

https://wiki.xkyle.com/PogoplugV2

May be a a bit memory shy.

I won't have time to play a few months, but welcome input and ideas.

Best,

LRP

[douglas]

try newegg.com ,
I build all my servers

[douglas]

On 2/11/2012 12:38 PM, Evan Miller wrote:

> also:
there are many work environments at the moment this is still fun.
If you are using windows,
1)- get oracle's vm virtualbox, On it you can put one or as many
linux,solaris, freebsd servers as you like(debian)
That will enable you to keep linux in one monitor window and windows 7
in the other monitor window
You can even minimize linux
2)- using putty, Winscp from windows
3)- eclipse with erlide,
4)- AptanaStudio3 - (it's free,only thing with aptana is to create
the .erl file, close it then right click it,
choose other, than select html ,Django editor(assuming you have your cb
project running)
you edit directly into cb server web directory, editing in real time)
From the remote tab in AptanaStudio3 you make your connection to
cb_tutorial running in linux
and edit in real time, minimize linux , and watch your code changes with
each save, as you refresh firefox.
http://debian/cb_tutorial/greeting/list
You can also connect cb_tutorial with dreamweaver, eclipse remote or
whatever is your favorite/favorites,
the gimp for windows 7 is amazing

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Douglas,

Thanks for the info.

I prefer Linux; am competent with most tools.

I haven't yet used VMs, however. Plan to. Just need to find time to read up. Would certainly welcome any tips on that.

Aptana Studio looks interesting. I'll definitely explore that.

Thanks again,

LRP

[Hwa, Yang Jerng]

Thanks for stating the obvious, Loyd. But you're preaching to the choir. What I was raising was a question on the possibility of dumbing it down even further for the masses who are not yet interested, given the current state of affairs. That's what it means to make something "marketable".

Jerng

[Trevor Bortins]

+1 for dumbing it down.  Erlang is already a mind-trip for people coming from non-functional languages, and deployment is even weirder.  That's why I was looking for a Heroku-based solution from the start!  I currently don't have the time or resources to wear too many hats, so taking deployment concerns out of the equation is very tempting.  That's a big reason Rails is so popular right now: small-scale apps can deploy nearly effortlessly and then developers can worry about figuring out the spicy details if they actually need to later on.

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Tevor,

I can well understand the frustration that you and Hwa feel.

I spent more than a year struggling to grasp Erlang and Erlang web infrastructure well enough to bring up sites I desperately need to support my books and small publishing business. Still struggling with it.

But "dumbing down," I think is an unfortunate way to think about the problem. What you're asking for, if I understand it, is a shrink-wrapped solution that allows you to load and go. Wouldn't that be nice. But there are any number of issues.

First, Erlang and Chicago Boss are open source. This means that smart and generous people have provided us with incredible software that we can study, deploy, and re-sell as we see fit.

The scores of talented developers who've created Erlang and Chicago Boss have no need to "market" their work. They already understand and use Erlang and CB. They have projects of their own to market.

I've been involved with computers and software development for more than 30 years. And I can vouch that both Erlang and Chicago Boss are truly outstanding. And, relative to many open source projects, are exceptionally well documented. Are the user docs perfect? No. Are they as easy to adopt and deploy as we might wish? No. Are they finished and polished software packages? No--- they're works in progress.

So this is where we come in. The one thing open source developers do hope for -- their most meaningful reward -- is users who will help carry the ball forward. As a user, my tech skills are considerably less than the exceptional talents behind Erlang and Chicago Boss. But I do hope, and try, that I can do my part to carry the ball forward by asking sensible questions when I don't understand something, sharing what I do know when I think I do, contributing to user documentation when I'm able, contributing useful code should I develop it, and supporting the generous developers who've provided this incredible platform in any way I can think of.

All well and good, but what about me? I'm as selfish and self-centered as the next guy. I've got books to write and publish. Time I spend on software is that much less time toward bringing success to my books and publishing business. I don't have many productive years left. But I do need the web to successfully market my books. Erlang and Chicago Boss give me exceptional access to the web. It's in my selfish, self-centered interest to learn everything I can about Erlang and Chicago Boss so I can fix stuff when it goes wrong.

And it will. Software breaks. Software goes out of date. Software systems are fragile. Software/hardware systems even more so. I'm a "army of one." I don't have an IT department. I can't afford expensive consultants. I thank my lucky stars that I've got the Erlang/Chicago Boss open source communities at my back.

So guys, you've already made a contribution toward greater success for Erlang and Chicago Boss by asking an important question. I do hope you stay with it, continue to ask about what confounds you, study more, and contribute back what you can. The success of the Erlang/Chicago Boss community depends upon it.

All the best,

LRP

-----Original Message-----
From: "Trevor Bortins" <trevor....@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2012 1:39pm
To: chica...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Deployment

[Trevor Bortins]

Those are good points, but my point wasn't exactly that I need to work harder (I'm sure all of us both do work hard and yet could work even more!) but that widespread adoption requires certain processes to be streamlined, efficient, and packaged to supply the greatest good for the greatest number of people, thus Rails' and other similar web frameworks' rabid user-base.  I can certainly see the benefits of using CB, and that's why I'm studying Erlang and CB--hopefully I'll get to the point soon where I can contribute something.  I'd like to see more people use them, too.

For all of it's easy get-up-and-go, Rails has, by far, no lack of contributors.  In fact, I'd argue that it's simplicity (well, that's debatable as of 3.1) is probably what garnered that expansive community of both users and contributors.  CB seems poised for something similar, but the bar of entry is higher (no doubt the rewards are as lofty).

Anyway, I see your point, and I don't mean to diminish anything anyone has done for Erlang or CB.  What I really mean is to find reasons to put the pressure on all of us to make this thing better, easier, more configurable, more modular, whatever "mores" we can come up with that everyone (with Evan's oversight, of course) more widely adopted, etc.. etc..  The title on the tab of the chicagoboss website even says "Erlang for Everybody".  Sounds like a challenge, no?  Everything about the presentation of CB begs for it to be the next Rails, Drupal, Django, Wordpress, (ok maybe not wordpress, haha) or whatever--but intrinsically better for the modern age where concurrency and distributed systems are ever-increasing issues.

I think all of that begs for easy deployment.  Don't you?

[Evan Miller]

Deployment will get MUCH easier once I (or a merry volunteer) figures
out the dark art of OTP releases. An OTP release is a "fat tarball"
that includes a full Erlang run-time and needed libraries, so you'll
be able to go from a fresh VPS install (WITHOUT Erlang or any
dependencies installed) to a server running your application just by
copying over a ~10MB tarball, unpacking it, and typing "./init.sh
start". Getting all this working is the last milestone for 1.0.

I'm especially about the possibilities with open-source servers built
with Erlang/CB. You'll be able to distribute your projects as turn-key
packages with ZERO compiling or prerequisites -- just unpack and run
on any machine. (Of course, you'll need to provide separate packages
for each platform/architecture.)

The functional-programming bar is probably too high for Erlang to be
the next Ruby (and CB the next Rails), but my hope is that once we
harness the power of OTP, Erlang/CB will be used to produce a
generation of high-quality websites and a plethora of open-source
projects that literally anyone will be able to deploy.

Evan

--
Evan Miller
http://www.evanmiller.org/

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Trevor,

I do indeed agree. What can we do to make it easier?

Best wishes,

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Evan,

I volunteer.

Will be a week or two until I get my book out. But then I'll be in a panic to bring up my book sites. So I plan to spend serious focused time with CB. I'll probably be more hod carrier than brick layer, but will do whatever I can.

I have a working, still a bit superstitious, understanding of OTP and managing Erlang apps under Rebar. I say superstitious since I can sort of get things to work without fully understanding the underlying why. I was just beginning to look into releases when other priorities pulled me away.

If you can give me your thoughts on where you see the biggest obstacles for CB I'll put particular attention there. I totally agree that deploying CB as an Erlang release will be a big step forward, not that it's all that difficult now.

Re: functional programming, or at least, Erlang--- the light went on for me when I grasped the significance of three concepts: single assignment, pattern matching, and recursion. They all seemed so simple-minded when I read Armstrong that I glazed over them. Then the light finally dawned--- these are the beating heart of the language. I haven't fully unleashed the power of functional style yet, but I know enough now to use list comprehensions, map, and filter. Suddenly it feels like I've gone from 0 to 60 overnight.

It was when I started understanding edoc and eunit, which wasn't difficult, and some of the various debugging and support tools, that I realized that Erlang is an industrial-strength language intended for getting real work done. Well worth studying in depth.

Having cut my teeth with Forth it does pain me to type io:format("My string") when I could express the same thing as ."My string" in Forth. But there are those who mistakenly see Forth as a write-only language.

[Hwa, Yang Jerng]

Given that this is a bottleneck that I can empathise with... if I spend any time digging into Erlang platforms at all, I'm going to be trying to learn OTP fundamentals before any particular framework. Estimate a 2% chance I'll figure out enough to help Boss before someone else does though. :)

Jerng

---
Yang Jerng HWA
+6 016 235 2931
Kuala Lumpur (GMT +8:00)

[ll...@writersglen.com]

Hi Hwa,

Your studies will be well rewarded. You'll be better able to understand Erlang code, expand your programming capabilities through the libraries, and be able to develop large-scale fault-tolerant systems.

Become skillful enough and you'll likely find many rewarding jobs out there.

And, it's not that hard.

Best,

[Hwa, Yang Jerng]

Hi Loyd - last comment from me on the topic of "make it easier vs study harder" - we're talking at cross purposes about two DIFFERENT PROBLEMS, I think, so let's not pursue that further in this forum.

 

Best wishes,

Jerng

---
Yang Jerng HWA
+6 016 235 2931
Kuala Lumpur (GMT +8:00)

[asch...@warp10.net]

On Sunday, February 12, 2012 10:27:23 PM UTC+1, Evan Miller wrote:
> Deployment will get MUCH easier once I (or a merry volunteer) figures
> out the dark art of OTP releases.

Or don't do OTP releases and use OS packging. We have build our own infrastructure to debianize CB deployments (and Erlang Apps in general). It took a while to get the basics right, but now we can checkout a new version of out project from git, package it and publish to an repository in under 10min. The customer (or we) can then upgrade the test, stage and production system with just an apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. It can be that simple ;-)

The packing tool is already public (https://github.com/fjl/tetrapak), the application manager (a kind of init.d system for erlang) should follow.

Andreas

[...]

[Jose Luis Gordo Romero]

Interesting, are the deb packages capable of other deployment tasks besides code update, ex db schema changes?

--

Jose Luis Gordo Romero

@jgordor - http://www.freemindsystems.com

2012/2/14 <asch...@warp10.net>

[Andreas Schultz]

Hi,

On Feb 14, 3:25 pm, Jose Luis Gordo Romero <jgor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting, are the deb packages capable of other deployment tasks besides
> code update, ex db schema changes?

You could do all kind of things in debian post install scripts, but
our build tool does not support installing custom handlers, yet...
Anyway, the question with Erlang applications is always whether it
makes more sense doing the migration within the application (e.g.
during
startup) or externaly. We have not found the ultimate answer to that
yet.

Andreas

>
> --
> Jose Luis Gordo Romero

> @jgordor <http://twitter.com/jgordor> -http://www.freemindsystems.com
>
> 2012/2/14 <aschu...@warp10.net>