Mercurial, Fabric, Liquibase, Kohana (part 1)

I'd like to to start writing about my usage of these tools, but inevitably I would have to write why I am using those specific tools. So not to return to this later I start with my reasons.

Mercurial

We decided to switch from our SVN and try a distributed system. Mercurial seemed the most friendly among others. And we like it till today.

Fabric

I tend to forget a lot. I return to a project after several months usually. After that time I don't remember all the details of the environment etc. Also, I am lazy and I don't want to spend time on performing the same stuff (create directory, change file permissions, create database, ...) with every project update. I like so that kind of repeating stuff to be done, rather then me doing it.

Among many tools I tried as Ant (and it's many derivatives), Capistrano or self created ones, I found Fabric giving me the most control over automation. It is not tight to particular workflow or specific task. I can use it with success for web development in PHP as well as for Python scripts I do often. The other reason surely is that I am a long time Python programmer.

Liquibase

Database structures are very much a code itself. I was looking for a solution which enables me to treat database development as it was just PHP, Python or other program code. From among few I found this one resembled the most my approach to the task when I tried to come with one in Python. Its not database dependent and very versatile. I like it a lot.

Kohana

There is a ton or more of PHP frameworks. I didn't do much research on them to give you any valid feature count and cons or pros. The story is very prosaic with my choice. Customer wanted us to use Kohana, so we did. And I grew to like it. It is easy to learn and it does not stand in my way of thinking. That's good enough for me.