30 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
30 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
This repository holds the documentation of the provs framework.
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# Design principles
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For usage examples it is recommended to have a look at [provs-scripts](https://gitlab.com/domaindrivenarchitecture/provs-scripts) or [provs-ubuntu-extensions](https://gitlab.com/domaindrivenarchitecture/provs-ubuntu-extensions).
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## "Implarative"
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Configuration management tools are usually classified as either **imperative** or **declarative**.
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Imperative means that you define the steps which are necessary to achieve the goal.
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Declarative means that you just define the state which you want to achieve, and the tooling figures out itself how this goal is achieved.
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The provs framework is aimed to offer the best of both worlds.
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Based on the imperative paradigm it offers advantages as: full control of execution order, clear control flow,
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all kinds of looping and conditional constructs, easy debugging.
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Furthermore, you are not limited by a DSL, you can make use of the full power of shell commands.
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On the other hand, the built-in functions of the provs framework also provide important advantages of the declarative paradigm, as for example idempotence resp. quasi-idempotence.
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## Idempotence vs quasi-idempotence
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Idempotence means that you can run the same function once or several times without problems, you'll always get the same result.
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However, there are cases where you don't want strict idempotence. E.g. if you are installing a program or cloning a git repo a second time, you might want to get just the latest version,
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even if an older version has already been installed earlier. This behavior is also known as quasi-idempotence.
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The provs framework uses quasi-idempotence where "real" idempotence is not possible or does not make sense.
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In the following document we describe how we implement idempotence:
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https://gitlab.com/domaindrivenarchitecture/overview/-/blob/master/adr-provs/quasi-idempotence.md
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