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Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

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Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#41

Post by gxonatano »

Here's how I would do it, very opinionatedly.

- Step 1. Use only Linux. You avoid having to translate between operating systems, you avoid paying expensive licenses, and you make your environments repeatable across dev machines. If a dev needs software that's only available on Windows or MacOS, have them run it in Docker or in a VM.

- Step 2. Define your software, programs, and user configuration in a .nix file. Create variables for user-specific stuff (usernames, email addresses, preferred software, etc.) and put them at the top of the file, so that you or the dev can easily edit it. Keep the Nix file in a Git repo, but allow your dev to maintain a separate branch. Build the Nix file into the system with `nixos-rebuild`.

- Step 3. There is no step 3.

Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#42

Post by francisofascii »

michaelt wrote: post #23

In my experience: 1. There's very rarely a one-size-fits-all solution, in terms of what people need. Oh sure, if everyone needs a VPN then you should install the VPN and suchlike. If there's mandatory corporate security software, add that as well. But will they need docker? Will they need virtualbox? Will they need VS Code? CLion? PyCharm? IntelliJ? Do they need Java installed? Which version of Java? Will they need A…

There should be an automated way to customize the setup using a series or checkboxes and/radio buttons options. Check VSCode, Git, Java version whatever, click Run, come back in an hour, and it is done. Helpdesk workers should not need to be involved.

Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#43

Post by naragon »

amne wrote: post #21

I usually live in WSL2 on Windows running on company provided laptop. Each time the laptop has to be replaced (failure or age) I struggled to get my "home" back up so a couple of years ago I took a full day to setup my so-called "dot files repo". My goal was to be able to install any debian-based distro and run a single script, non-interactive, that would get me up and running. All that I needed to do was to clone co…

Similar set up with a dotfile repo then I use GNU Stow to manage my dotfiles once I clone the repo.

Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#44

Post by pushcx »

bloopernova wrote: post #40
ryan-duve wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used Ansible. Is it worth using for just this workflow? I'm asking coming from a baseline of just having a Git-versioned shell script which has lines like brew install coreutils and whathaveyou.

You get the nice stuff that Ansible brings, like adding specific lines to .zshrc, templates, etc. I found it easier than my usually-beloved shell scripts because I didn't need to think about the mechanism, just the result. For example, brew install coreutils would use the community.general.homebrew module: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/communit... <-- you can see from that page that each module…

You have to think about the mechanism if you remove a file. Ansible is imperative like a shell script, not declarative.

Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#45

Post by heraldgeezer »

cameron_b wrote: post #29
heraldgeezer wrote: post #24

IT here. Devs need to manage their own. We hook it into AD/AAD, EDR and Office 365. Dev enviroments THEY setup as THEY are developers. If then cant install some stuff can they even dev?

Setting up the environment for development, especially for onboarding, is a crucial operations step that allows the devs to stand on the shoulders of giants. If you're asking them to test in prod ( not providing a local test environment for component testing ) or reinvent the wheel ( and get the wheel type right... should I build a bicycle wheel or a railcar wheel? ) then the first week of a new hire is spent trying…

They have test environments. Where did you get "Test in prod" from?

But what they need to install depends so much on the project, and they all have pet machines. C# very different from C or something, right? :)

Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#46

Post by heraldgeezer »

tracker1 wrote: post #39
cameron_b wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting up the environment for development, especially for onboarding, is a crucial operations step that allows the devs to stand on the shoulders of giants. If you're asking them to test in prod ( not providing a local test environment for component testing ) or reinvent the wheel ( and get the wheel type right... should I build a bicycle wheel or a railcar wheel? ) then the first week of a new hire is spent trying…

Depends on the size/scale of the larger org and the developer team in question. There's a lot of variance even in internal corporate tool teams as to what gets used. Are you supporting an older .Net Winforms app, or are you supporting a React/next application or a Java Spring app? The tools you need and use will be very different. Is it really worth trying to automate everything for a team of 3 devs on a given projec…

This is what I am getting at, thank you.

Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#47

Post by solardev »

rho138 wrote: post #5
solardev wrote: post #3

Can everything live inside a docker thing that you redistribute?

And now everyone has to pay royalties if the end-users don’t know how to run docker without docker desktop

Isn't that only for big companies?

From https://www.docker.com/pricing/:

> Commercial use of Docker Desktop at a company of more than 250 employees OR more than $10 million in annual revenue requires a paid subscription (Pro, Team, or Business)

Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#48

Post by lolinder »

solardev wrote: post #47
rho138 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now everyone has to pay royalties if the end-users don’t know how to run docker without docker desktop

Isn't that only for big companies? From https://www.docker.com/pricing/ : > Commercial use of Docker Desktop at a company of more than 250 employees OR more than $10 million in annual revenue requires a paid subscription (Pro, Team, or Business)

To be fair, if you have fewer than 250 employees and are going to stay that way for very long then you have no business worrying about automating onboarding scripts. It will take too much of your time for too little gain.

Re: Ask HN: Developer PC setup automations for company owned devices

#49

Post by woleium »

francisofascii wrote: post #42
michaelt wrote: post #23

In my experience: 1. There's very rarely a one-size-fits-all solution, in terms of what people need. Oh sure, if everyone needs a VPN then you should install the VPN and suchlike. If there's mandatory corporate security software, add that as well. But will they need docker? Will they need virtualbox? Will they need VS Code? CLion? PyCharm? IntelliJ? Do they need Java installed? Which version of Java? Will they need A…

There should be an automated way to customize the setup using a series or checkboxes and/radio buttons options. Check VSCode, Git, Java version whatever, click Run, come back in an hour, and it is done. Helpdesk workers should not need to be involved.

like an enterprise version of ninite.com ?
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