Chapter 31. Donât Touch That Code!
IT HAS HAPPENED TO EVERY ONE OF US AT SOME POINT. Your code was rolled onto the staging server for system testing, and the testing manager writes back that she has hit a problem. Your first reaction is âQuick, let me fix thatâI know whatâs wrong.â
In the bigger sense, though, what is wrong is that as a developer you think you should have access to the staging server.
In most web-based development environments, the architecture can be broken down like this:
Local development and unit testing on the developerâs machine
Development server where manual or automated integration testing is done
Staging server where the QA team and the users do acceptance testing
Production server
Yes, there are other servers and services sprinkled in there, like source code control and ticketing, but you get the idea. Using this model, a developerâeven a senior developerâshould never have access beyond the development server. Most development is done on a developerâs local machine using his favorite blend of IDEs, virtual machines, and an appropriate sprinkling of black magic for good luck.
Once checked into SCC, whether automatically or manually, it should be rolled over to the development server, where it can be tested and tweaked if necessary to make sure everything works together. From this point on, though, the developer is a spectator to the ...
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