Re: mod_perl EC2 AMI's or other platform providers?

Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
> On 5 Jul 2011, at 08:53, Tosh Cooey wrote:
> 
>> On 7/4/11 11:26 PM, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
>>>> I'm not happy, hence the complaining about the AMI from 2009.  But I'm glad you changed the subject from your first one, which is that I should build my own stack.
>>>>
>>>> So basically you are saying (and only you, not a community voice) that in order to be a mod_perl developer one also needs to:
>>>>
>>>> 1) Build and optimize Apache.
>>>> 2) Build and optimize MySql.
>>>> 3) Build and optimize Perl+mod_perl.
>>>> 4) Build and optimize a Linux server environment.
>>>> or
>>>> 5) Have enough money to pay for all of the above.
>>> You have no stack.
>>>
>>> Make one.
>>>
>>> Better still, get a bunch of people together with the same problem. Dunno where
>>> you'd find 'em.
>>>
>>> I just spent six months helping a company do exactly[0] this and move off a dated
>>> RH platform onto a modern, current, Debian, perl 5.14, all new CPAN modules.

Ah, the beauty of being able to
apt-get install libapache2-mod-perl2

>>
>> You seem to have missed the point of my kvetching, which is perhaps a suitable answer anyway.
> 
> 
> What was the point?

Rather than slinging it out in public, you may want to consider..

There are bound to be different points of view for this kind of issue, from different 
kinds of users.  I see the same on other forums to which I subscribe (Apache, Tomcat).
It is like a triangle.
In corner A, there are developers who want to have the latest versions of their particular 
packages of interest and be able to fine-tune their setup for easy development, debugging, 
bug reporting etc.., but do not care very much if other packages consequently run less 
well on the same server.
In corner B are mere users, who just want the applications to work 24/24, and could not 
care less about the underlying package versions as long as it does work.
And in corner C are sysadmins, who are supposed to manage an ever-increasing number of 
servers, install something on request of A or B within the next 5 minutes, and then keep 
all the servers up-to-date OS-wise and many-different-packages-wise over time.
Since all of them want to sleep at night and take holidays from time to time, these 
different positions/requirements are bound to conflict occasionally.  Depending on the 
people involved, the size of the organisations, the budgets at stake etc, these groups may 
overlap or not and have different weights, so the shape and point of equilibrium of the 
triangle will be different in each case.  And I'm sure that it's a polygon rather than a 
mere triangle.  There certainly isn't one answer which fits all.
Personally, I must say that statements like "I just spent six months helping a company do 
exactly[0] this" make me dream.  I must be in the wrong triangle...