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A better comparison would perhaps be “ansible” vs “puppet” vs “chef”. I wrote everything in shell, then puppet, then chef, then ansible. Doing literally the sa

A better comparison would perhaps be “ansible” vs “puppet” vs “chef”. I wrote everything in shell, then puppet, then chef, then ansible. Doing literally the same thing. Because fads.

hardwaresofton 3y ago
Taking this comment in good faith, because HN... Do you really not see any difference between Ansible and a shell script? Even just the move between shell and bash/csh/tcsh/zsh whatever else can make a marked difference in productivity and ergonomics.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > Do you really not see any difference between Ansible and a shell script? Surely they do, but how much those differences matter depends on where those tools sit in relation to what you're trying to achieve. For example, I could write essays about the differences between bash and PowerShell, and about differences in productivity their various facets create, in both abstract and concrete terms. However, when my task is not about shell scripting per se, and the script plays only a minor role in the solution ("oh, but we can make the button launch a script that launches X"), and my main concern about that stage is to convince the team to use Bash and/or PWSH instead of making Python a dependency in the project - then bash and PWSH are really the same thing to me - any difference in productivity for that use case is dominated by one's familiarity with the tool, and none of it matters anyway if my co-worker succeeds slotting in Python for that use case. Similarly, there are many differences between bare shell scripts and Ansible, and there are differences between Ansible and Puppet and Chef too. But they're also close to each other, so if your use case doesn't hinge on those differences, you can be excused for wondering why can't we just keep using a Makefile for this.
- allarm 3y ago
  I mean, yeah? Ansible has roles, collections and a great inventory system. There's a lot of extra steps if you want to use a shell script instead, to i.e. install Docker on multiple hosts running different OS versions. I don't really like Ansible, but I think it's quite good for provisioning. It's also super easy to write filters and plugins for extra functionality.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  I can see that Ansible with its do-it-yourself-AST-in-YAML is more tedious to write and even debug :-P No wonder they have shorthand versions of their module calls, too. I'm still using it, though every piece of software lately, fad or not, is something I tend to endure or survive or cope with, rather than use or enjoy using. Little papercuts everywhere.
- 28304283409234 3y ago
  Context: I wrote deploy and configurations in Shell in 1999, for Employer A. I started writing Ansible in 2013, for Employer F. In the middle I wrote puppet and chef. All doing basically the same stuff. And yes, obviously there's worlds of differences. Using Puppet killed my productivity, for example. But my point was that those tools are more comparible than 'terraform' vs 'ansible'. I stand by that comment.
  - hardwaresofton 3y ago
    thanks for responding -- I do agree that ansible, puppet, and salt are the closer comparisons (they are of the same lineage -- I mentioned them in passing and kind of clumped them together). See my response here[0] as well, but to summarize: - There is more overlap than it seems on the surface (not implying that you are taking a surface view) - I wanted to get across was the way someone might ask if they were new/looked at it all as churn from the outside. The average dev who thinks "devops churns too fast" is not necessarily going to know the difference between ansible and terraform to begin with, never mind knowing that ansible/salt/puppet/chef are a different approach/lineage compared to terraform. > And yes, obviously there's worlds of differences. Using Puppet killed my productivity, for example. I never used Puppet -- it was love at first sight with Ansible for me, felt like the perfect amount of abstraction/structure even though some of the patterns were long in the tooth. My career is not as long as yours, but I still use ansible to this day (with pulumi). [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36476215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36476215

A better comparison would perhaps be “ansible” vs “puppet” vs “chef”. I wrote everything in shell, then puppet, then chef, then ansible. Doing literally the same thing. Because fads.

hardwaresofton 3y ago

Taking this comment in good faith, because HN... Do you really not see any difference between Ansible and a shell script? Even just the move between shell and bash/csh/tcsh/zsh whatever else can make a marked difference in productivity and ergonomics.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
> Do you really not see any difference between Ansible and a shell script? Surely they do, but how much those differences matter depends on where those tools sit in relation to what you're trying to achieve. For example, I could write essays about the differences between bash and PowerShell, and about differences in productivity their various facets create, in both abstract and concrete terms. However, when my task is not about shell scripting per se, and the script plays only a minor role in the solution ("oh, but we can make the button launch a script that launches X"), and my main concern about that stage is to convince the team to use Bash and/or PWSH instead of making Python a dependency in the project - then bash and PWSH are really the same thing to me - any difference in productivity for that use case is dominated by one's familiarity with the tool, and none of it matters anyway if my co-worker succeeds slotting in Python for that use case. Similarly, there are many differences between bare shell scripts and Ansible, and there are differences between Ansible and Puppet and Chef too. But they're also close to each other, so if your use case doesn't hinge on those differences, you can be excused for wondering why can't we just keep using a Makefile for this.
allarm 3y ago
I mean, yeah? Ansible has roles, collections and a great inventory system. There's a lot of extra steps if you want to use a shell script instead, to i.e. install Docker on multiple hosts running different OS versions. I don't really like Ansible, but I think it's quite good for provisioning. It's also super easy to write filters and plugins for extra functionality.
WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
I can see that Ansible with its do-it-yourself-AST-in-YAML is more tedious to write and even debug :-P No wonder they have shorthand versions of their module calls, too. I'm still using it, though every piece of software lately, fad or not, is something I tend to endure or survive or cope with, rather than use or enjoy using. Little papercuts everywhere.
28304283409234 3y ago
Context: I wrote deploy and configurations in Shell in 1999, for Employer A. I started writing Ansible in 2013, for Employer F. In the middle I wrote puppet and chef. All doing basically the same stuff. And yes, obviously there's worlds of differences. Using Puppet killed my productivity, for example. But my point was that those tools are more comparible than 'terraform' vs 'ansible'. I stand by that comment.
- hardwaresofton 3y ago
  thanks for responding -- I do agree that ansible, puppet, and salt are the closer comparisons (they are of the same lineage -- I mentioned them in passing and kind of clumped them together). See my response here[0] as well, but to summarize: - There is more overlap than it seems on the surface (not implying that you are taking a surface view) - I wanted to get across was the way someone might ask if they were new/looked at it all as churn from the outside. The average dev who thinks "devops churns too fast" is not necessarily going to know the difference between ansible and terraform to begin with, never mind knowing that ansible/salt/puppet/chef are a different approach/lineage compared to terraform. > And yes, obviously there's worlds of differences. Using Puppet killed my productivity, for example. I never used Puppet -- it was love at first sight with Ansible for me, felt like the perfect amount of abstraction/structure even though some of the patterns were long in the tooth. My career is not as long as yours, but I still use ansible to this day (with pulumi). [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36476215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36476215