At my last role I used Puppet extensively, and didn't need to learn Ruby to do most of what we needed. I did have to learn some basic Ruby for erb templates to auto generate some of the config files we needed. >From my observation of the product development, the need for Ruby skills is diminishing as the product continues to grow. I don't think it will go away, but basic skills were adequate for some reasonably complicated templates.
Mike On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 2:57 AM, Richard Chycoski <[email protected]> wrote: > Doug Hughes wrote: >> Richard Chycoski wrote: >>> Neil Neely wrote: >>> >>>> I've been using puppet for 8 months and have yet to learn Ruby[1]. >>>> >>> Yes, but this applies to people who have been using Perl [of >>> fill-in-the-blank-package-or-language] for *years* without learning >>> to use it! :-) >>> >>> It's a question of how much can you do without learning the >>> underlying language of the package? What can you *NOT* do without it? >>> >>> >> Caveat: I don't know Ruby or Puppet currently, but I'm not sure the >> counter-argument holds (others may judge better). >> >> For example, there is no need to know anything about Ocaml (thank God) >> to use unison, nor is there any need to know C to use KDE or Gnome, >> etc. Puppet may be in a different space where leveraging the >> underlying language gains you tangible benefit, but maybe to be a >> productive netizen there's no need. >> >> $.02 > I do agree that for most packages, you have no need to learn the > underlying language, as the application is fully self-contained. > > However, therein still lies my my question - I haven't used Puppet, so > although I hear people saying that you can generally get along without > learning Ruby, what classes of problems do you need to learn Ruby to > solve in Puppet? > > For myself, picking up yet-another-programming-language is not an issue, > after the first dozen or so the remaining dozens are easy - but not > everyone is prepared for this. If there are classes of problems that > require learning Ruby for effective use of Puppet, it would be good for > those who are looking towards Puppet to know them before getting boxed > in. If it really *is* just extreme corner-cases that need it, then some > examples of when people have had to resort to extending Puppet using > Ruby would be interesting to know. > > Although, getting walked down the garden path can be a great motivator > to learn a new language when you need that 'teensy little extension' to > complete a job at 3 am.... :-) > > - Richard > _______________________________________________ > Tech mailing list > [email protected] > http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
