Agile Development Workflow Part 1 - Setup
The cornerstones of the agile development workflow I’ve developed over time are speed and flexibility. As someone who has fallen in love with his mac and refuses to work on any other operating system - I’ve had to adjust my workflow for whichever frameworks I’m working with.
This workflow will be of no use to 9-5ers that punch in and out promptly, who work only on a company provided computer and exclusively work with Active Server Pages and other web technologies circa 2000. If you have a passion for the web and web technologies - this will meet all of your needs (and possibly desires).
I have had to work with many co-currently, from working with .net applications (yumdrop) to perl applications (quibblo) and php based solutions (this blog), etc. I needed something that was flexible and fast, that I could use at work or at home (I work on my MacBook Pro exclusively), with a speed that would not interrupt my development process - I make changes fast and frequent. Plus - I am a front end web developer - so I don’t have to worry about developing with IDE’s (RIP VisualStudio.net) - TextMate is my monkey wrench.
I’m splitting up this series over numerous posts - I believe it’s just too much information. Once I get all the information maybe I’ll release a condensed version but I think a walk-through will serve everyone equally well.
The Connector
The first thing that is required is a way to build a bridge. Since I work mostly on remote servers (although this is not required) I run some automation scripts over ssh. The problem with ssh or any remote login is the dreadful password prompt. What good is automation if you have to type in your password everytime? Luckily ssh allows you setup your account in a way that will give you access to your servers sans password.
Setup Time
Since this is an agile dev workflow that is catered towards Mac users - I’ll assume you have ssh available by default.
Fire up terminal (I prefer iTerm)
Navigate to
~/.ssh
macAttack:~/.ssh kb$ ls
idrsa idrsa.pub known_hosts
Upload your
id_rsa.pub
This is an IMPORTANT step. If you are logged in via ssh do not copy and paste your key - it won’t work!
Log in to your webserver via ssh:
ssh username@server.whatever
In the directory you uploaded your idrsa.pub file - run the follow command:
cat idrsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
This will append your computers public rsa key to your remote computer
authorized_keys
Test it out! disconnect and reconnect - it should be automatic!
If I lost you, I found these resources that go into a bit more depth of the setup process and may clear up any confusion:
Setup Complete!
If you got tripped up feel free to contact me and I will try to help you out.
Watch for updates here: Agile Development Workflow Series
Next in line: Agile Development Workflow Part 2 - Love The Sync
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