This week we look at The Evolution of Automation at Google and Release Engineering.

The companion discussion to this week's episode starts at 7 pm Eastern. You can join by going to bookclub.dev/thursdays.

Notes

Automation is meta-software, software that acts on other software

The Value of Automation

• Consistency
• A Platform
• Faster Repairs
• Faster Action
• Time Savings

The levels of automation

1. No automation
2. Externally maintained system-specific automation
3. Externally maintained generic automation
4. Internally maintained system-specific automation
5. Systems that don't need any automation

Reliability Is The Fundamental Feature

XKCD: 1205

Philosophy of Release Engineering

• Self-Service Model
• High Velocity
• Hermetic Builds
• Enforcement of Policies and Procedures

Bazel

Next week we'll read chapter 9 Simplicity and chapter 10 Practical Alerting from Time-Series Data