On Mar 6, 12:40 pm, "chris_sny...@sra.com" <chris_sny...@sra.com> wrote: > I have to say I'm very disapointed right now with the state of Puppet. It > seems that the official documentation is pushing parameterized classes but > at the same time there are very serious drawbacks to their usage.
I agree that that is a sore spot, and I can assure you that the PuppetLabs staff is aware of it. As with any small company, however, there is more work to be done than hands to do it, even if you factor in community contributions. The staff is very responsive to community comment, so perhaps you can see your way clear to cutting PuppetLabs some slack. > Additionally, they are trying to sunset the use of dynamically scoped > variables which appear (to me anyway) to be the preferred method of the > community at large (based upon my research on the web and this mailing > list) to completing tasks. (I've lost track of the number of references > I've seen that basically say, 'ignore them and go on'.) Dynamic scoping is a preferred method because at one time it was the *only* method. Even then it posed unavoidable consistency problems, however, and these sometimes bit real users. Many uses of dynamically scoped variables can trivially be converted to fully-qualified variables. You should not be writing new code that relies on dynamic scoping, and you should be wary of third-party code that relies on it. Getting rid of dynamic scoping is a good thing. > Regardless, it appears to me that no matter what I do, I will probably find > my self having to refactor large portions of my code when 2.8 is released; > either I'll be removing lots of 'includes' or changing lots of class defs > and updating usage. This does not instill confidence in me, nor does it > inspire me to dive right in. I really feel I've approached Puppet at a > very unstable point in it's existence where there is no 'right answer' and > the 'recommended patterns' will probably radically change in a year or so > and at this time I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I do not work for PL, but I am confident in assuring you that you can write modules that will work fine now and for the foreseeable future. I think it's also safe to assume that most third-party modules that are worth using will be updated for Telly soon after it is released (though I confess that my criteria for "worth using" include being supported by the author). Puppet remains an actively developed project. I think that's a good thing, but it has meant approimately one new major version every year since I have used the software. Backwards compatibility has been pretty good, with the upcoming removal of dynamic scoping being the only absolutely breaking change I can think of over the last few years. Nevertheless, Puppet development is fast-moving. > I hate to say it, but I think I need to go investigate a few other tools (a > la Chef, CFEngine, etc.) before I commit any more time to Puppet. By all means do consider your alternatives. I think Puppet is a great tool, but no one tool is best for everyone. John -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Users" group. To post to this group, send email to puppet-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to puppet-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en.
