Homelab
I'm writing this homelab guide to share some of the things I've learned, so if you're starting out or looking for what to do next, perhaps you can grab an idea or two for your setup. I would always advise starting small, getting comfortable, and then deciding if you are ready for more.
Azure
In all companies, large and small, there is no One app to rule them all. The reality is that there are often dozens, sometimes hundreds, of apps/services/tools/etc that we use to help ourselves or to provide services to our clients.
DevOps
Testing! Every developer's favorite topic :). For me, if I can save time through automation, then I'm interested. Automated testing for a developer typically starts with unit tests, which, even if you don't subscribe to TDD, you've written at least one of them
Slack
In this example, I'm using an Azure API app with Easy APIs enabled (formerly mobile services...but better) and the preview version of the Azure Function app.
Azure
I have a love-hate relationship with the Azure portals. Some days it's fast and lets me do exactly what I want; other days, like today, I want more control over how my stuff runs.
Azure
After sifting through posts, docs, and Stack Overflow, I finally set this up using the same MSBuild process I'm using for Continuous Deployment today.
Slack
Online persistent chat is awesome! Ever since I joined my first IRC chat room, I was hooked. It's slash commands, people leaving/joining/collaborating, and it's always running
DevOps
Fortunately for Azure developers, there are many great ways to set up continuous delivery (CD) to Websites. I use Bamboo CI server.
DevOps
As we all know, exception handling is critical to every application's success. It's not a matter of if something goes wrong, it's how and when. However, it's one thing to trap an exception and another to get that information into an actionable format.
Git
As a long-time TFS user and VSS user before that, what is most commonly referred to as centralized version control (CVCS) was all I knew.
Azure
With Azure Websites, setting up Continuous Delivery (CD) of your code as it's committed is incredibly easy.
Git
When I started searching on the topic of moving from my 2-year-old TFS repository on visualstudio.com over to a new git repository, I was mentally preparing myself for a struggle.