Work Life: Retrospective on Learning Azure DevOps Pipeline and Release (primarily a C# developer)

I am a very lazy learner. By this, I mean more like lazy-loading in software development. I read as little as possible before trying to implement something.

Due to this, my learning of Azure DevOps Pipeline and Release was quite frustrating. To guesstimate, the experience probably took me about a week to get something to work with some ability to customize to external needs.

Pipeline vs Release

I still do not have a clear picture of this in my head. The things I read have not been fully digested and not similar to my experience with them.

My current view is that the pipeline is an ability for me the ability to use a temporary virtual machine to "download", build, and create an artifact.

I use Release to get that artifact and deploy it to the target systems.

A small question mark in my mind is that pipeline could be used to deploy and release can also be used to build. Using them separately above is still much easier.

Learning so many new technologies

By new, I mean things I have not learned for example bash. Bash has been around a long, long time but I haven't ever needed bash although a bit similar to dos command. I know extremely limited knowledge of dos command besides navigating around and getting user or system info.

Because I am a windows guy, I was using a windows VM. I was using bash on windows. I did not realize this was a problem when I was trying examples which were mostly designed around Linux. I admit that I didn't know bash was primarily a Linux thing. So after a lot of time in-part because it took me a while to learn about the Linux part, I changed the VM to Linux which then magically everything started to work properly.

The hardest part of using Windows bash was moving files around. Because Windows uses a drive letter, the copy was confused on what to do with the drive letter. It sometimes used the letter as a folder so it could not find the files. I probably didn't use it correctly.

I also had to learn YAML. Although pretty simple on the format, it was difficult to understand how this was used. It was edited in Azure so part of my mind was thinking this was executed in Azure. After a lot of troubleshooting, it finally dawned on my that this is mostly triggered from GitHub because GitHub has to send the trigger to the pipeline. So things like why the trigger branch only works on the branch the YAML file is on is important.

I was still in the process of learning GitHub and how to use it with Visual Studio while trying to train developers on branching (I also do not understand why I am the person responsible for this as a release manager). There was just so many variables in my knowledge that it was rather frustrating to figure out where the problem is.

Troubleshooting

Part of learning so many new techs is troubleshooting them. I spent hours just figuring out that spaces are important in bash. An equal sign requires no spaces around it when assigning. Then it needs spaces for comparing.

Learning which variables are part of DevOps system versus variables of the language or VM system. I really just tried copy/paste but understand where my system variables are used with code variables was taxing my brain.

Time Constraints

Would it have been better if I just sat down and read each tech first? Probably not. I would probably still be learn all the capabilities of bash and nothing else. Was there a better way to handle this still?

I definitely admit that I am very cheap. I tried to lean on colleagues but they lack the expertise even in their own fields so I have very little resource within my company. It was also very, very difficult to get someone's time to just look at my problem or teach me the technology. I spent so many evenings just reading on things just to solve seemingly simple problems like getting just the changed files in git.

I actually asked a friend if he knows anyone about the technology and offered to pay (with my personal funds) to help me with my work. I figured this was the fastest way to learn as they would know what I need to know and what I didn't need to know yet.

Ended up I couldn't find anything and my friend being curious as he was assisted me with at least the bash portion enough so that I can figure a piece of my problem. Amazingly that was enough stability for me to complete the whole project.

I stopped using Microsoft Visual Studio and Azure (2019)

I am mostly a hobbyist developer. I had moved to more process management in software engineering. So the cost of paying for the professional version ($1200 / $800) of Visual Studio is quite steep even though I still paid for several years. I am aware there is an Express version which I had used initially but the professional provided a lot of neat features also provided Azure credit so I figured it compensated some of the cost.

I was content with paying but then my real work got busy for several months, also many things came up in my personal life, so I had neglected programming for a bit. When I returned, I realized Visual Studio no longer let me log in. I eventually found that my subscription had expired. I then noticed that I had received a bunch of emails that said I was overdue. This was due to a fraudulent charge on my credit card which was canceled, and that card was the one on record to renew.

This was extremely confusing, because I thought they had moved to subscription basis which I had been paying. When I paid all the overdue costs, I was still unable to use VS 2019. But somehow VS was separate and that had expired several months past, so it will cost me another $1200 to repurchase to use. I am still a bit confused exactly what is what, like what was Visual Studio and what was monthly subscription.

My current understanding is that I was paying monthly for Azure which does not include VS. I had paid for VS the prior year. Sadly, I didn't notice that I had been paying some much to MS for so long. So I still have Azure to host my site temporarily, but absolutely no access to VS. But if I paid for VS, then I should basically own my copy of VS. After talking to support, this was confirmed to be the case. I was unable to find a key in my MSDN subscription. I just grew tired and frustrated, then just refused to use VS again... not even the Express version.

On top of that, since I had purchased VS 2019, I should have had $50 monthly credit to Azure so why was I paying the Azure monthly costs (which was under $50 / month)?! Ugh.... this is so painful.

In Summary

I had once forgot to renew in the past and paid the full cost, so this is the second time. I was barely ok with the cost. Then they moved me to subscription basis which I had complained about because I just wanted to pay a flat amount. Then I found out that I still had to pay the VS subscription and I guess I was paying the Azure subscription. I had been using VS for over 10 years, maybe around 15 years.... and absolutely no sympathy for my situation. I have been a promoter of MS VS, .NET, and MS SQL, but no longer. I don't hate them, but definitely no love anymore. 

And so, I have moved to Google Cloud, Linux, Python, Apache, Django, and Postgres. After one week, the pricing scheme is very reasonable for hobbyists and people who wants to experiment before going full production. First impressions for this new tech stack will come in the future.

Will I go back? Maybe if there were some changes, but unlikely. I'll continue to use MS Windows, although a good chance I may move

Buggish: Visual Studio 2017 - The designer encountered an error while loading the table definition

The designer encountered an error while loading the table definition

Fix

Restarting computer

Failed Attempts

• Tried reconnecting to Azure db
• Tried restarting Visual Studio 2017
• Tried using Visual Studio 2015

Other Odd Behaviors

This was the first time using Visual Studio 2017 (just installed).

An empty web project created.

Connected to Azure db previously created couple years ago and has been in use.

"View Designer" was working initially.

Right before breaking, I just created a new column and new unique index to 3 tables.

Initially unable to "View Designer" on those tables, but able to on the other tables.

After several attempts, unable to "View Designer" on all tables with VS2017 and 2015.

Disconnected and reconnected with no success.

Restarting Visual Studio with no success.

Rebooting my system (running Visual Studio) appears to have fixed the problem.

My guess is some connection was held up... but doesn't make a lot of sense restarting application would fix that problem.

Buggish: Visual Studio 2013 with Azure - Waiting Internal Operation and Checkin

Waiting Internal Operation

Microsoft Visual Studio is waiting for an internal operation to complete. If you regularly encounter this delay during normal usage, please report this problem to Microsoft.

I don't know why I get this sometimes, but is quite frustrating to wait for several minutes for this to go away. I have not figured what causes this. My only guess at this point is it may be due to me rebuilding the solution too frequently in a short period of time although this is not always the case.

Check In

Check in fails if I have a sql query open that was not saved. I do not want it saved since I only use it to check certain queries and view data information. If I select not to save, the check in will cancel. The only way around this is to close the window or save. What makes it odd is that the count with the number of files does not change so the process is odd to be dependent on a file that is not even part of the project or check in count.