I learned to do deployments using custom shell scripts, and then someone introduced me to Capistrano. And i didn't get it at all. Why would i use this tool when i could just write a shell script? What does it save me? My main conclusion was that some people just don't like shell scripts as much as me.
Hah, I agree. I think the thing that made me like Capistrano was basically that someone else had written what was basically shell scripts for me and had worked out a bunch of details so that I didn’t have to on my own (eg rollbacks).
Whether cap or custom scripts, the thing I loved about that is… it’s simple enough that you can fully understand what’s happening. Not just at an abstract level but very concretely.
