Now that expressive infrastructure as code models nearly everything in the datacenter, we have a different problem — weeding out bad infrastructure code! Quality coding practices aren’t new but most operations teams are learning them for the first time. The Puppet Forge’s product manager Ryan Coleman will discuss what he’s learned from the thousands of examples available on Forge. Though examples are offered in the readable Puppet DSL, this talk is designed for anyone using configuration management software to manage infrastructure and applications. No knowledge of Puppet is required to learn from this session.

Ryan has been knee-deep in infrastructure code for 4 years, starting as a user of Puppet at Penn State and moving on to manage the Puppet Forge at Puppet Labs, a shared repository for great (and not so great) infrastructure as code written in the Puppet DSL. He’ll cover how to identify various quality characteristics and why they matter in your day to day. It’s not just about conforming to a style and aligning your braces! After this talk, you should be equipped to have a conversation with your team about how to collectively improve the code base and reduce long-term maintenance.