From the next version of Java development with Ant

Projects used to have had a hard split between developers and the testers. The developers were revered as the heroes of the team, while the testers given the blame for holding up the shipping date. In fact, testers often have the hard problem: designing and implementing tests for the application, and get to be the bringers of bad news, namely that the project is unshippable. They always get the blame, too.

With test-driven development, developers share their pain. We get to write the tests, we get to discover which parts of the system are inherently untestable, and we share the blame when "too much time is spent in testing". All is well. Or is it?

In any server-side project, there is still one team who ends up arguing with the developers, getting grief from management, and generally taking the blame for delays. The operations team. These are the people who have the task of getting everything working, securely. They are also on call evenings and weekends to deal with any problems.

If you are developing server-side applications, keeping the operations team happy must be one of your goals. This is purely enlightened self-interest. If they get called in at weekends with a problem, and cannot diagnose or fix it themselves, they will call someone who can. You.

Your aim should be to stay in control of your schedule, by having a system that is easy to deploy.