If you don't know about it, then you don't need it. Seriously, you don't.

In the last share about The Future of the terminal, I had a rather interesting conversation with one of the readers. It sparked a thought or two.
The baseline was:

Most of the differences are things people don't use that regularly.

Absolutely right.

With the rapid diversification of technology, languages, and frameworks alike, too often we get lost in the complexity and get sucked into the love of the challenge. We forget our initial reason; to solve a problem.

Let's sit down, shall we? See exactly what this means.

Say, for example, you had deployed a Django application and for some reason, you wanted to make some changes. That's where fabric comes in. You see, it allows you to SSH into your server, upload a file, activate a virtual environment - hell, it even lets you restart your application all from right within a sample simple script. All you need to do is import it:

from fabric.api import cd, env, prefix, run, task

You are basically running a script as if you were getting into your server directly.

# access my server and create a new user.
>>> from fabric import Connection
>>> c = Connection('db1')
>>> c.run('sudo useradd mydbuser', pty=True)
[sudo] password:
<Result cmd='sudo useradd mydbuser' exited=0>
>>> c.run('id -u mydbuser')
1001
<Result cmd='id -u mydbuser' exited=0>

Speaking of server management, we got Nagios, and for this, we have Shinken. If at one point you are like, ' Who is going to do all these things again ! ' , then, by all means, use it.

From re-using Nagios config files to deployment, it handles it with a slight layer of abstraction so that it does not seem that much of a task. After all, we have to be DRY.

Now if in reading about the last two packages you are like, 'Wow! I mean!', 'That looks cool !', 'This is incredible ...' and so forth, dare to ponder; "Do you really want to use them? Or are you just amazed?"

If you were to go to their homepages right now, would you import them in a file or just install and keep them in stock in some random virtual environment? These are the questions you need to ask yourself.

Do you really want to use them? Or are you just amazed?

Consider another scenario. When will you read that bookmark you made a couple of days, weeks, or even months ago? Was it another impulse bookmarking? I have to admit, I am guilty as charged of this as well.

The well of frameworks, packages, and libraries is deep and extensive, but if you do not know what you are going to use a particular item for, chances are you do not need it in the first place.

A rather short page this time, trust me, I know. This is just to get that thought going in. For now, this is it. And remember, it's time to go through your bookmarks.

Till next time ,

The Green Codes