What are Repeatable and Maintainable Development Environments?

When we say complicated development environments, we want to stress the software environments that the coders work with as per the changing programming or project needs.

Say, one day a developer is experimenting with his dexterities within a Java environment, the other day he switches to JavaScript, and then he is asked to pay heed to Python, PHP, and so on.

This is troublesome, confusing, and time-consuming, already in the imagination so one can realize what a developer has to deal with working in a dynamic software environment.

To keep the development environment operational, streamlined, and facile, the need for a repeatable and maintainable development environment is essential that proves helpful for the entire team of programmers under all circumstances.

What is a Repeatable-Maintainable Development Environment?

With the increasing complexity of modern projects, developers see dependencies while working on different server versions running on different operating systems.

So to keep the development environment sane, Repeatable Development Environments are created that include a common configuration format and workflow that can be used repeatedly across diverse operating systems.

The tasks that are achievable using different devices and operating systems can be accomplished via a single repeatable development environment that contains different tools for programming.

Such an environment can be established with the help of virtual machines or containers that embed software, libraries, languages, frameworks, and toolkits compatible to run on a variety of OS and ultimately, be deployed as needed.

Creating A Repeatable Environment With A Virtual Machine
This is the easiest way. Start with creating a virtual machine, install the OS and add all the quintessential tools required for programming as per the software environment. For a new, clean environment, clone the virtual machine and headstart with a new clone.

Creating A Repeatable Environment With A Container
This also forms an instant development environment where the difference lies between the understanding of developers to work with containers and building a containerized development environment.

[Python Virtualenv is another option to create a repeatable and maintainable development environment, but is language-specific.]

Benefits Of Repeatable Development Environments

Cost-Efficiency
Certainly, if you aren’t setting up desktops or laptops, or tablets for creating an environment that eases your work, you are saving on costs. Moreover, creating containers or virtual machines are economical than hardware as well as portable to be deployed anywhere, anytime.

A developer sitting anywhere in the world needs to just log in to the server, deploy the environment, and is good to go.

Reliability And Predictability
Reliability was one of the features expected to be delivered from a repeatable environment. Every time a developer spins this environment, he is assured that it works the same way they need it.

It’s so reliable that it ensures that no developer would need to put any effort to customize or configure it before using it and further make it predictable when you know it’s going to behave exactly as required and expected.

Easy Establishment
The ease of setting up a container or virtual machine for a repeatable environment smoothens its working procedures.

Deploying desktops or laptops is eliminated as a step and developers are allowed to focus on programming, instead of building the necessary environments.

Instant Access to Repositories
When creating a repeatable and maintainable development environment, make sure it is added to the necessary repository access. With your GitHub, GitLab, or internal repositories pre-configured, developers can start working immediately, pulling down code and creating commits.

Repeatable development environments ease the burden of developers and make it convenient for them to effortlessly deploy them nimbly and repeatedly.

To get more insights into different software development environments and how our programmers make the best and most efficient use of them in creating market-ready digital products, get in touch with the adroit team of IT Experts at CodeGlo.