Automate Yo' Self

Automate Yo' Self!
OpenWest 2016
Sandy UT
John SJ Anderson
@genehack
if anybody has any questions or i'm going too fast, please throw up a hand and ask -- or i'm here all week, grab me
on the hallway track

@genehack
i go by genehack most places on line.
today i'm going to talk to you today about some tools and tricks i have for being productive while developing. but
before i do that, i need to explain a bit about why i needed it. my life is busy.

@sammygenehack
dog's got a twitter account.

A Wife
and a wife that i like to hang out with

long-suffering conference widow
A Wife

photobomber is
not impressed.
A Wife
long-suffering conference widow

Hobbies
and i have a few hobbies -- maintain some Perl modules,

Hobbies
Trying to learn Swift, check out Angular 2,

Lots
of
Hobbies
reading, hiking, cooking,

I've got a lot of balls in the air
don't have time for trivial nonsense, so i use a lot of automation and other "lifehacks"

AUTOMATE YO' SELF
occasionally, you just have to automate yo' self!

Basic Principles
whenever i'm trying to do this, there are some basic principles that i try to keep in mind

Don't
Make
Me
Think
none of this automation stuff should require me to think -- if i have to think about it, it's not really saving me any time

This is my "you made me think" face.
the whole point is not having to think.

Consistency is Good.
so, in those terms, one thing that's essential: make everything the same. have a standard directory layout under $HOME. you shouldn't have to think about
what system you're on, what shell, what project. things should just be the same -- or at least *correct* -- all the time

Idempotence is better!
Idempotence: the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science, that can be applied multiple times without changing the result
beyond the initial application

App::MiseEnPlace
so, here's an example of idempotence, a utility i wrote to manage symlinks and directories in my home directory

App::MiseEnPlace
"everything in its place"
"mise en place" is a French phrase meaning "everythng in its place" -- it comes from cooking, and the principle that you should have all your ingredients
prepped and ready to go before you start cooking. i wanted something to make sure i always had my standard directory layout under $HOME as well as
setting up various symlinks

% cat ~/.mise
---
manage:
- doc
- etc
- private
- proj/*
- src/*
create:
directories:
- bin
- proj
- proj/go/src/github.com/genehack
- src
- var
links:
- Desktop: var/tmp
- Desktop: tmp
here's what the top level config for mise looks like -- it goes in .mise in your home directory. we have a list of
directories we want to manage (more on that in a minute) and a set of directories and symlinks to create. links are
source:target

% cat proj/emacs/.mise
---
create:
links:
- DIR: ~/.emacs.d
- bin/build-most-recent-emacs: BIN
- bin/e: BIN
- bin/ec: BIN
- bin/git-blame-from-line-num: BIN
- bin/map-test-lib: BIN
this is a per-project config file. mise has a couple special keywords DIR and BIN, that refer to the directory
containing the .mise file and ~/bin, respectively
the advantage of this is you don't need to have a huge gnarly $PATH with a bunch of project directories in it,
everything is just symlinked into ~/bin

% mise
[LINK] created ~/proj/emacs -> ~/.emacs.d
[LINK] created ~/proj/emacs/bin/build-most-recent-emacs -> ~/bin/build-most-recent-emacs
[LINK] created ~/proj/emacs/bin/e -> ~/bin/e
[LINK] created ~/proj/emacs/bin/ec -> ~/bin/ec
[LINK] created ~/proj/emacs/bin/git-blame-from-line-num -> ~/bin/git-blame-from-line-num
[LINK] created ~/proj/emacs/bin/map-test-lib -> ~/bin/map-test-lib
% mise
% rm ~/bin/e
% mise
[LINK] created ~/proj/emacs/bin/e -> ~/bin/e
when we run mise for the first time, you can see it creates all those links. if we run it again, it does NOTHING.
Idempotency for the win! If you remove a link and run it again, it creates _just_ that link

App::MiseEnPlace
get it from your favorite CPAN mirror
available on CPAN, minimal dependencies, works on any perl from this decade.

smartcd
ok, so that handles getting a consistent directory structure, and linking project binaries. what if you have other per-project stuff that you want to set up?
environment variables or other stuff?

smartcd
Automatically run code when entering or
leaving directories or sub-directories
enter smartcd, which hooks the 'cd' command and then runs scripts when you enter or leave a directory (or even a subdirectory)

% smartcd show enter
/Users/genehack/.smartcd/scripts/Users/genehack/fake-node-proj/bash_enter exists
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
########################################################################
# smartcd enter - /Users/genehack/fake-node-proj
#
# This is a smartcd script. Commands you type will be run when you
# enter this directory. The string __PATH__ will be replaced with
# the current path. Some examples are editing your $PATH or creating
# a temporary alias:
#
# autostash PATH=__PATH__/bin:$PATH
# autostash alias restart="service stop; sleep 1; service start"
#
# See http://smartcd.org for more ideas about what can be put here
########################################################################
autostash NODE=4.2.3
autostash PATH=$PATH:__PATH__/node_modules/.bin/
nvm use $NODE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
smartcd has 'edit' and 'show' subcmds (and a bunch of others), and 'leave' and 'enter' scripts. here's an enter script
for an arbitrary node project. the autostash keyword sets up an environment variable that will be *unset* when you
leave this directory. you can also run arbitrary commands; the 'nvm' command here selects a version of node to use

% cd ~/fake-node-proc
Now using node v4.2.3 (npm v2.14.7)
% echo xx$NODE
xx4.2.3
% cd ..
% echo xx$NODE
xx
here's what it looks like when you cd into that directory. and you can see the env var is set. if we change back out of
the directory, the environment variable is unset.

smartcd
https://github.com/cxreg/smartcd
pretty cool, available on github. works with bash and zsh. really easy to install.
i can pay this the highest possible compliment: i haven't forked it or needed to patch it in any way, i just use a checkout from the upstream repo

App/Env
Builders
are
your
friends
speaking of per-project settings, let's talk for a minute about application builders.

perlbrew
plenv
nvm
App::GitGitr
build-most-
recent-emacs
here are some of the ones i've used or use now. perlbrew and plenv let you have multiple perls. nvm does the same thing for node. similar tools exist for
python, ruby, etc.
then there's GitGitr, which I wrote while maintaining Git wrapper library. I needed to be able to quickly install arbitrary Git versions while responding to bug
reports -- so I wrote a little tool that does that.
Similarly, I'm an Emacs user. If a new version is released, I want to upgrade, across all my systems - so I scripted that.

Consistency Corollary:
Don't trust system binaries
Back at the beginning, I said "consistency is good". Now, if you're developing on MacOS and deploying to Linux (or dev-ing on Ubuntu and deploying to
Debian), you're probably not going to have the same version of tool from the OS (and if you do now, it's not going to last). Even if the versions are the
same, there may have been vendor patches applied.

Automate building your
critical tools.
No, if you really want to be consistent, the best approach is to build the tools that are most critical for your project. ("Build" in this case may just mean
automating the install; it doesn't have to mean "build from source".) Note: only do this for the *important* stuff. (include examples)

The Silver Searcher
Speaking of tools, here's a tool that has literally improved my entire development life -- the silver searcher. Anybody
here using this?

grep?

ok, so, grep -- everybody knows grep, right? let's you search for text inside files, which is something you do a lot
while developing code.

grep?

powerful, speedy, indiscriminate
so, grep is super powerful in terms of what you can search for, and it's pretty quick, but it's not very selective. you
can list all the files you want to search, or search whole dir trees, but you quickly realize this sucks, because of things
like .git directories. anybody ever do a recursive grep on a big git checkout? yeah.

ack?

anybody here use ack? ack is a grep-like tool written in perl.

ack?

powerful, selective, slow
it's just as powerful as grep in terms of what you can search for, but it's recursive by default (which is what you want)
and it's smart about ignoring .git and SVN stuff. the problem is, it's pretty slow, particularly to start up (because
Perl)

ag!

enter ag (which is what the binary for the silver searcher is called.

ag!

powerful, selective, FAST
ag works much like ack (not _exactly_, but close enough), but it's written in C and it's oh so fast.

The Silver Searcher
https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher
available on Github, also packaged in several Linux distros. again, no higher compliment than to say I just build
from a checkout of the upstream. have never needed to fork or patch

My biggest productivity/automation tip
so, here's my single biggest tip in this whole talk. are you ready? brace yourselves.

Revision control
$HOME
this is it. anybody know what this is?
this is your home directory under revision control

Why bother?
no, but seriously. it's a little bit of a pain to develop the discipline but once you get used to having _everything_
under revision control, it's nice. you don't have to worry about experimenting with anything, backing stuff up, or
dealing with cross-machine variation in your environments

say
automation
again
originally i had series of kludgy shell scripts to manage repo updates and checkouts
super ugly and not worth sharing
and then, inspiration: Ingy döt Net talking about App::AYCABTU @ PPW2010

Ingy döt Net
this is ingy - he's a crazy awesome open source hacker guy who has done a whole bunch of stuff. probably best
known for being one of the inventors of YAML

Things I wanted to steal
the thing ingy had developed had a bunch of stuff i wanted to steal:
The basic idea
The interface
Info about repositories in conﬁg ﬁle
Flexible ways of selecting repos for operations – by #, by name, by tag

Things I wanted to add
Support for more than just Git
Locate repositories in arbitrary locations
Easily add and remove repositories
Ability to easily extend with more subcommands
Most importantly: better name!

App::AYCABTU?!?!‽
and finally, the name. what even is this.

GitGot
Thus was born GitGot
http://search.cpan.org/dist/App-GitGot/
Installs a ‘got’ command
Uses Moo and App::Cmd under the covers
Add new subcommands by writing a single class!

Whirlwind Tour
Let's take a whirlwind tour of how got works

got add
you tell got about repos using the 'add' command, from inside the git repo

% got add
Name: foo
URL:
Path: /Users/genehack/foo
Tags: bar
it'll prompt you for required info, and supply sensible defaults. note that you can also apply tags (space-delimited)

got add -D
or you can just add the '-D' switch and it'll automatically use the defaults

got clone <REPO URL>
you can also clone a remote repo, which will check it out into the working directory and add it to got, prompting
you for details

% got clone git@github.com:genehack/app-gitgot.git
Name: [app-gitgot]:
Path: [/Users/genehack/app-gitgot]:
Tags: :
Cloning into '/Users/genehack/app-gitgot'...
it'll prompt you for required info, and supply sensible defaults. note that you can also apply tags (space-delimited)

got clone -D <REPO URL>
got clone also respects the '-D' switch

got fork <GITHUB URL>
finally, you can give got a github url, and it will fork that project under your github id, then check it out into the
current directory and add it to got

~/.gitgot
all the info about the repos managed by got lives in this .gitgot file in your home directory

- name: App-Amylase
path: /Users/genehack/proj/App-Amylase
repo: git@github.com:genehack/App-Amylase.git
type: git
- name: Git-Wrapper
path: /Users/genehack/proj/Git-Wrapper
repo: git@github.com:genehack/Git-Wrapper.git
tags: git
type: git
- name: HiD
path: /Users/genehack/proj/HiD
repo: git@github.com:genehack/HiD.git
type: git
- name: Perl-Build
path: /opt/plenv/plugins/perl-build
repo: git://github.com/tokuhirom/Perl-Build.git
type: git
it's just a simple YAML formatted line, totally hand-editable (although you shouldn't _need_ to do that, you can)
note that repos can be located anywhere on the disk, don't have to under a common dir or in your home or
whatever. anywhere you can write to is fair game

But now what?
ok, so you've added all your git repositories to got. what now?

got list
well, you can get a list of them

got ls
which you can shorten to this

1) App-Amylase git git@github.com:genehack/App-Amylase.git
2) Git-Wrapper git git@github.com:genehack/Git-Wrapper.git
3) HiD git git@github.com:genehack/HiD.git
4) Perl-Build git git://github.com/tokuhirom/Perl-Build.git
5) Perl-Critic git git@github.com:genehack/Perl-Critic.git
6) STAMPS git git@github.com:genehack/STAMPS.git
7) advanced-moose-class git ssh://git@git.iinteractive.com/train/advanced-moose-class.git
8) app-gitgitr git git@github.com:genehack/app-gitgitr.git
9) app-gitgot git git@github.com:genehack/app-gitgot.git
that'll get you this sort of listing.

got ls -q
if you don't want to see the upstream repo info, you can use the '-q' or '--quiet' switch

1) App-Amylase
2) Git-Wrapper
3) HiD
4) Perl-Build
5) Perl-Critic
6) STAMPS
7) advanced-moose-class
8) app-gitgitr
9) app-gitgot
and that'll get you this output.
note the numbers - those will give you a way to select repos for other commands

got ls [repos]
easiest way to demo that is with an example. you can restrict the listing

got ls 5
this will just list repo #5 for example

5) Perl-Critic
also, note that the list is always sorted the same way, so the numbers will be stable (unless you add new repos)

got ls 5-8
you can also give a range of repos

5) Perl-Critic
6) STAMPS
8) app-gitgitr
and that'll give you that range, like you would expect

got ls HiD
you can also specify repos by name

got ls -t git
or by using tags. can specify multiple tags with multiple '-t' switches. they combine with 'or' semantics.

2) Git-Wrapper
8) app-gitgitr
9) app-gitgot
here are all the repos tagged with 'git' (at least in our example)

got ls 5-8 HiD 21 -t git
finally, you can combine all of these selection methods together. here we're asking for repos 5 thru 8, the repo
named HiD, repo 21, and all repos tagged with git

2) Git-Wrapper
3) HiD
5) Perl-Critic
6) STAMPS
8) app-gitgitr
9) app-gitgot
21) etc
and this is what we get
note that most commands operate on all repos, and any that do, you can use these techniques to restrict the
command to a subset.

What else you got?
That's cool.

got status
you can check the status of your repos.
*all* your repos

got st
or if you're into the whole brevity thing...

1) App-Amylase : OK
2) Git-Wrapper : OK
3) HiD : OK
4) Perl-Build : OK
5) Perl-Critic : OK
6) STAMPS : OK
7) advanced-moose-class : OK
8) app-gitgitr : OK
9) app-gitgot : OK
that'll get you output like this.
again, note the use of color to give quick visual cues

1) App-Amylase : OK
2) Git-Wrapper : OK
3) HiD : Dirty
4) Perl-Build : OK
5) Perl-Critic : OK
6) STAMPS : OK
8) app-gitgitr : OK
9) app-gitgot : OK
Dirty
got status will let you know if a repo has uncommitted changes.
super handy if, for example, working on one machine and are going to move to another one and want to see what
hasn't been committed.

1) App-Amylase : OK
2) Git-Wrapper : OK
3) HiD : OK
4) Perl-Build : OK
5) Perl-Critic : OK
6) STAMPS : OK Ahead by 1
8) app-gitgitr : OK
9) app-gitgot : OK
1) App-Amylase : OK
2) Git-Wrapper : OK
3) HiD : OK
4) Perl-Build : Dirty
5) Perl-Critic : OK
6) STAMPS : OK
8) app-gitgitr : OK
9) app-gitgot : OK
Dirty
1) App-Amylase : OK
2) Git-Wrapper : OK
3) HiD : OK
4) Perl-Build : OK
5) Perl-Critic : OK
8) app-gitgitr : OK
9) app-gitgot : OK
Ahead by 1
it'll also tell you if you have local commits that haven't been pushed to the remote yet

got st -q
finally, you can use the '-q' switch to hide the "uninteresting" stuff

got st -q
3) HiD : Dirty
Dirty
Ahead by 1
which in this case is all the repos that don't have changes and are up to date

got update
you can also run 'git pull' across all your repos

got up
which abbreviates to 'up'
and yeah, i should have called it pull but i'm a dummy and we're stuck with it now.

1) App-Amylase : Up to date
2) Git-Wrapper : Up to date
3) HiD : Up to date
4) Perl-Build : Updated
Updating 7f25f89..72587c8
Fast-forward
lib/Perl/Build.pm | 14 +++++++++++++-
script/perl-build | 14 +++++++++++++-
2 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
5) Perl-Critic : Up to date
Updated
it'll do pretty much what you expect (and it supports '-q' too)

got update_status
finally, there's a command that combines both those, because it's something i do pretty frequent -- update
everything, then look at the status of everything

got upst
surprise - you can abbreviate that one too

got upst -q
and it also supports the '--quiet' option to only show you the interesting stuff

How much would you pay?
so, how much would you pay?

got fetch
if you're not a fan of the way 'git pull' works you can also run 'git fetch' via got.

got push
you can even do a push across all your repos at once. (personally, this strikes me as insane but somebody sent in a
patch, so...)

got gc
you can garbage collect all your repos

got this
at some point, somebody sent in a patch to add 'got this' -- which tells you if the current directory is under got
control

got that <DIRECTORY>
this provoked somebody else to send in a 'got that' command, which does the same thing, but takes a path to
check

got chdir
finally, there are a number of commands that help you jump to the directory of a project. got chdir

got cd
also spelled 'got cd', will change your current working directory to the given repo (note that this is one of the few
got commands that requires a single repo)

got tmux
we also have tmux integration -- 'got tmux' will open a new tmux window with the working directory in your repo.
this _can_ be done with multiple repos. better, the tux window is persistent; as long as it's open 'got tmux' will just
select the already open window, not open a new one

got tmux -s
you can also spawn whole new tmux sessions if you prefer those to windows -- and again, those will be re-used as
long as they're around

How much
would

you pay

now
?

Good news!
It's free!
nothing!

Works on any perl

from the last 5 years

cpan App::GitGot
installation is simple

cpanm App::GitGot
can be even simpler

BLATANT PUG
If you're not sure
what 'cpanm' is,
come to my
Unfrozen
Paleolithic Perl
Programmer talk
tomorrow at 4pm!
blatant plug

Find me at OpenWest
and I'll help you install!
or you can find me on the hallway track and i'll help you get it installed on your machine

package App::GitGot::Command::chdir;
# ABSTRACT: open a subshell in a selected project
use 5.014;
use App::GitGot -command;
use Moo;
extends 'App::GitGot::Command';
use namespace::autoclean;
sub command_names { qw/ chdir cd / }
sub _execute {
my( $self, $opt, $args ) = @_;
unless ( $self->active_repos and $self->active_repos == 1 ) {
say STDERR 'ERROR: You need to select a single repo';
exit(1);
}
my( $repo ) = $self->active_repos;
chdir $repo->path
or say STDERR "ERROR: Failed to chdir to repo ($!)" and exit(1);
exec $ENV{SHELL};
}
1;

package App::GitGot::Command::chdir;
# ABSTRACT: open a subshell in a selected project
use Moo;
extends 'App::GitGot::Command';

sub command_names { qw/ chdir cd / }

sub _execute {
my( $self, $opt, $args ) = @_;
unless ( $self->active_repos and $self->active_repos == 1 ) {
say STDERR 'ERROR: You need to select a single repo';
exit(1);
}
my( $repo ) = $self->active_repos;
chdir $repo->path
or say STDERR "ERROR: Failed to chdir to repo ($!)"
and exit(1);
exec $ENV{SHELL};
}

Suggestions welcome!
areas for improvement:
support for other VCSen
better config management tools
any other crazy workflow improvement you can think of!

Thanks
OpenWest organizers

Ingy döt Net

Yanick Champoux

Michael Greb

Rolando Pereira

Chris Prather
photo credits:
all photos by speaker except
Ingy döt Net photo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/bulknews/389986053/
and pug - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Sad-pug.jpg
and automate yo'self - somewhere on the net

Questions?
https://joind.in/event/openwest-2016/automate-yoself
as i said, i'm here all week and i *love* to talk to people about this productivity type stuff, so grab me on the
hallway track. i'm friendly.

Automate Yo' Self

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