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After 15 years, I use Outlook as my build pipeline

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Re: After 15 years, I use Outlook as my build pipeline

#31
Long ago, I used to work at some bank, where SVN branch merging was always super painful and instead of solving people problem, there was holy, e-mail based system running on our common dev machines.

After recieving properly formatted email, script was executed to apply git merge between svn branches. In case of merge issues, the email was sent back with feedback. If everything was okay, a proper sign-off blessing by one of the technopriests as late check was applied and merge concluded.

Re: After 15 years, I use Outlook as my build pipeline

#33
post #11

Memories of waiting for months to get access to a MS SQL database and ending up putting an Access database on a network share for multiple user access instead. A horrible, horrible hack solution. But it worked!

I volunteered at an archaeology lab run by the state govt a few months ago.

Knowing I was a data engineer, one of the archaeologists asked me to take a look at the cataloging system he’d cobbled together on his own: a shared-drive Access database with a full-featured CRUD interface that the whole office had been using for years.

I was able to clean up one stray bug he had, and confirm his suspicion that one particular action was running slow because it had to touch multiple files by necessity (he’d rolled his own sharding) — but generally speaking, it was a work of art more effective than anything I could’ve ever come up with. Sometimes the “dirty hacks” are the best solutions.

Re: After 15 years, I use Outlook as my build pipeline

#34
post #9

I knew a guy who would brag that he used Outlook as his build system 20 years ago. Builds would take 9 to 24 months depending on the complexity of the project. But, as the CTO of a mid-sized software company, it worked for him.

> Builds would take 9 to 24 months depending on the complexity of the project.

I might be stupid, are you saying a build would take 9 to 24 months to finish?

Re: After 15 years, I use Outlook as my build pipeline

#35

[flagged]

There are so many issues with what you have here… where to start…

You aren’t running tests, unless you put them in the dockerfile which is a bad idea…

You aren’t running security scans. how do you deploy manifest changes? Using Latest as a tag has so many issues.

This is a trivial and niave pipeline I would expect from a junior or intern.

Build pipelines are becoming more complicated because software is more complex. You can still promote ownership of the full pipeline while giving developers control.

Don’t shy away from it, understand it, embrace it. It’s just going to continue getting more complex

Re: After 15 years, I use Outlook as my build pipeline

#37
post #33
post #11

Memories of waiting for months to get access to a MS SQL database and ending up putting an Access database on a network share for multiple user access instead. A horrible, horrible hack solution. But it worked!

I volunteered at an archaeology lab run by the state govt a few months ago. Knowing I was a data engineer, one of the archaeologists asked me to take a look at the cataloging system he’d cobbled together on his own: a shared-drive Access database with a full-featured CRUD interface that the whole office had been using for years. I was able to clean up one stray bug he had, and confirm his suspicion that one particula…

The avoidance of dirty hacks are not because they don’t work. They do and can be pretty X-effective when you’re short on X. But the end result is that when you need to switch away from the hacks, then the interest paid on X can be enormous. If X includes time, it may never be repaid.

Re: After 15 years, I use Outlook as my build pipeline

#39
post #9

I knew a guy who would brag that he used Outlook as his build system 20 years ago. Builds would take 9 to 24 months depending on the complexity of the project. But, as the CTO of a mid-sized software company, it worked for him.

> Builds would take 9 to 24 months depending on the complexity of the project. I might be stupid, are you saying a build would take 9 to 24 months to finish?

Yeah, it confused me also

Either its the wrong unit (minutes?) or the wrong definition of "build"?

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