I really wish there was a configuration management tool out there with a statically typed API. I've spent countless hours debugging Ansible's YAML which gets really unwieldy with hundreds or thousands of tasks.
Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
11–20 of 55 posts
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#12This won't be really helpful to you since you've already built it, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't like videos. I AM interested in Ansible, but I don't want to sit through videos about it; I want to read and follow the examples as I do. Actually, I wonder what the split is between people who prefer videos vs people who prefer reading?
Absolutely no to videos. Can't easily tell what's where when I want to jump to a certain section, no result from web search for the contents and can't even copy paste any examples.
It's like keep watching TV for news to find the tiny bit that you might care about. Much waste of time.
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#13This won't be really helpful to you since you've already built it, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't like videos. I AM interested in Ansible, but I don't want to sit through videos about it; I want to read and follow the examples as I do. Actually, I wonder what the split is between people who prefer videos vs people who prefer reading?
If it's a video, I'm very likely to just hit the back button. I skim read far faster than a video is capable of giving me the information and I can't copy and edit example code from a video. I get that some people like videos, but unless there's a transcript, I'm not going to be using it. Now, if it's a general talk on a subject, a video is great as the speaker can entertain as the talk. But if it's tutorials, please write the article's to go with it.
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#14I really wish there was a configuration management tool out there with a statically typed API. I've spent countless hours debugging Ansible's YAML which gets really unwieldy with hundreds or thousands of tasks.
Pulumi comes the closest that I’ve seen — https://www.pulumi.com/
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#15This won't be really helpful to you since you've already built it, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't like videos. I AM interested in Ansible, but I don't want to sit through videos about it; I want to read and follow the examples as I do. Actually, I wonder what the split is between people who prefer videos vs people who prefer reading?
Text is a must-have for me and videos can be a nice addition.
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#16This won't be really helpful to you since you've already built it, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't like videos. I AM interested in Ansible, but I don't want to sit through videos about it; I want to read and follow the examples as I do. Actually, I wonder what the split is between people who prefer videos vs people who prefer reading?
Yet another No Video Please vote here.
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#17I really wish there was a configuration management tool out there with a statically typed API. I've spent countless hours debugging Ansible's YAML which gets really unwieldy with hundreds or thousands of tasks.
Pulumi comes the closest that I’ve seen — https://www.pulumi.com/
This seems to work only with cloud providers, not with dedi boxes / VPSs?
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#18I really wish there was a configuration management tool out there with a statically typed API. I've spent countless hours debugging Ansible's YAML which gets really unwieldy with hundreds or thousands of tasks.
Also, being able to weaken the distinction between configuration and code would be good. Often I need to make small change to code. But is a lot of work.
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#19This won't be really helpful to you since you've already built it, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't like videos. I AM interested in Ansible, but I don't want to sit through videos about it; I want to read and follow the examples as I do. Actually, I wonder what the split is between people who prefer videos vs people who prefer reading?
For programming definitely text. We actually perceive code differently than blocks of texts, so it is easier to just jump to a block of code that seems right to what you want.
For videos, activities that are more visual, like guitar lessons are more suitable
Re: Show HN: Ansible Crash Course
#20This won't be really helpful to you since you've already built it, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't like videos. I AM interested in Ansible, but I don't want to sit through videos about it; I want to read and follow the examples as I do. Actually, I wonder what the split is between people who prefer videos vs people who prefer reading?
I hate videos for technical learning. I will avoid them as much as possible, especially if I cannot play at 2x speed (or more!) and/or if they don't have a thumbnail-preview when skipping.
Often I find that with videos:
- I already know some bits and pieces about something - it is quite rare to be coming in 100% fresh to something. So I don't want to have to sit through all the crap I already know, or have to skip backwards and forwards getting past the pre-amble ("What we're going to learn on this course!" "What is ?" etc - if I didn't know what it was, I'd not be here doing the course) or bits I already know.
- Videos make terrible reference material. If you are trying stuff out as you learn you have to pause the video, then if you forget you then need to go back and re-watch the video to re-listen to what was said, perhaps several times. Text is so much easier to flip back and forth from.
- Watching videos often leads my mind to wander and before I know it I am "watching" a video and doing my email/programming/random internet stuff... this basically means I end up ignoring the video and just concentrate on my other real work.
Just as a thought experiment - can you imagine a stack overflow type site where all the questions and answers were in video format? That would be a special type of hell :-)
I couldn't watch this as it needed email registration, but some constructive suggestions:
- have a 100% textual content in nice chapters/sections.
- make the first example of something the absolute minimum-viable-example (don't make it "more interesting" with unnecessary extras).
- After presenting the example, go over it again in extreme detail (especially if new concepts are used) and explain each thing - e.g. What is this YAML thing? What is this param for? Why did we use value X? What does this other param do? What values can it take?
- make additional examples that cover the common other cases that someone might come up against, e.g. doing 1 of something vs doing X of something.
- copy-paste-able snippets for boring boilerplate (e.g. installation of stuff etc) are good++.
- Add a video as an extra demo that cements what was covered in the text. Try not to include any bullshit in the video (intros, jokes, other timewasting etc)