Brownfield

The single-user mastodon instance that I created a while back has just been doing its thing for a while. I didn’t add a relay so the only stuff I saw was directly followed users. A couple of weeks ago, I added https://bigrelay.social/inbox to feed some of the hashtags I’m following. This caused some emails to show up from Honeycomb about my usage going way up!

Now that I have a century-old house to manage, I’ve found myself struggling to keep on top of all the things that need doing. Not only that, but knowing which need to be done by when, which require tools or parts, and which are on hold can be tricky. To alleviate these problems, I’ve come up with a plan…

When running other people’s software, there are a variety of ways that one can impact the deployment. Developers typically provide a set of configurations that can be set during deployment. Additional configurations are available once it’s running. These are design choices to decide which levers to provide and how flexible to make them. I wanted my instance to do some stuff that the latest release doesn’t do.

You know how every time any startup deployed software for the 2010s, a news article was posted 6-12 months later about how their files were all stored in a completely unprotected S3 bucket? It’s my turn and it’s a speedrun!

Since the Fediverse stuff is catching on, I decided to upgrade the deployment. New name, Kubernetes deployment, encryption, the whole thing. Also moving my account across instances went pretty well.

I feel compelled to write this up because of the struggles I faced along the way. Nothing was terrible or difficult but some of the docs were outdated and I had to find random gists and do some code archeology.

There is a lot of talk circulating about the exit of the Air Force and DOD’s first “Chief Software Officer”. Having first-hand experience with the plans, processes, and outcomes allows me to write from a detached observer perspective. What can be learned by those embarking on improving a massive, Brownfield organization?

Most people these days have written some javascript. This may not be true of humanity (though I wouldn’t bet either way), but it is definitely true of the Brownfield.dev audience.

Taking a couple of hours to revisit the basics is actually fun.

Many business owners are recognizing the value of utilizing a remote workforce. This can be a particularly effective employment structure for those who want to put together a team of remote developers. To ensure this type of setup will work for your business, make sure you have all of your operational functions in order prior to interviewing candidates, hiring staff, or launching operations.

Picture it, Silicon Valley (but remote), twenty nineteen.

I’m working at GitLab after being hired despite the job description saying “needs Kubernetes experience” and my interview featuring the concession:

Yeah, we don’t really see anybody with Public Sector and Kubernetes experience.