YAPC::NA 2007

June 25-27, Houston, TX

Automating Workflow

Automating Workflow

By Todd Olson
Date: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 09:00 AM
Duration: 20 minutes
Language:


Account and configuration management at Cornell University's E-list Service requires orchestrating several separate computer systems and human approval processes all of which are failure prone, constantly evolving and often poorly understood.

I've had a lot of fun with Perl5 while automating this workflow.

I will describe the approach and tools I have developed that have permitted me to bit by bit automate more and more parts of this workflow. After describing the general design, which is independent of Perl, I will present a way to organize 'error handling' in Perl, which has been my central concern in this project. I will close by commenting on how my idiosyncratic approach to modular/flexible code development in Perl aided adapting these tools to the task of migrating the service from Listproc to Lyris ListManager.