Comment by bitshift | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitshift | Hacker News Reader

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Hi Mitchell, it's really great to have you explain all of these things here. Thank you both for this and for writing Vagrant, there is no doubt that it is a valuable piece of software. I have a few more questions if you don't mind:

1. When you first started with Vagrant, did you consider using Python at all? Did you consider using libvirt? Because VirtualBox offers a Python API out of the box (or it does now) and libvirt comes with direct support for Python (http://libvirt.org/bindings.html). I like Ruby and generally I prefer it to Python but I am interested in your view of whether it was the right tool for the job in this case or whether the language choice didn't matter much.

2. In your view what is the overlap in functionality between libvirt and Vagrant and what are the differences? As far as I can see libvirt does let you spin up boxes, talk to them and tear them down. The notable difference is that there is no Puppet of Chef provisioning, is there anything else beyond that?

3. veewee in version 0.3.0 (currently in beta) seems to offer the same functionality as Vagrant plus the ability to create boxes using templates, minus the ability to run provisioners. If they add that say in 0.4.0 then it will be 1:1 in terms of features with Vagrant. Any thoughts on this?

Thank you again for your time and for answering in such detail :-)

No problem, I'm glad you're getting value out of the responses. In response to your questions:

1. When I first started Vagrant, I was a full time Ruby developer, so Ruby was really the obvious choice for me. I don't really see language as a barrier for using a tool, my opinion is generally use the best tool for the job. And as a Ruby developer that at the time had 4 years of Ruby experience, that was the best tool for the job since I'd get the most productivity out of it. To date, I don't regret this decision. There are some things Ruby is bad at, some things it is good at, but I think I can overcome the bad with time.

2. I think the difference is that Vagrant is a tool focused on user experience and workflow. i.e. it'd be possibly to build Vagrant on top of libvirt. I think libvirt is technically stronger than Vagrant, but Vagrant provides a better overall experience. The overlap is small, we both have a lot to gain from working with each other.

3. A handful of people keep saying that Vagrant is just a "VM setup + provisioning" tool. Vagrant does quite a lot more. The main example I always use is networking because it is usually the most complex. Vagrant makes networks work across Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, and sets up the hosts and guests properly. VeeWee doesn't do this and won't do this. VeeWee at its core was built to be a VM image creation tool. VM lifecycle control was bolted on later. VeeWee filled a major gap in the Vagrant ecosystem for a long time.

I'm good friends with the creator of VeeWee and we talked all the way back in Oct, 2011 of merging the functionality. He was all for it. Its almost been a year but this work is finally going to get started.

I don't want to talk too much about it until I really start coding, but I can say that no one in his thread has really seen the true scope of what I'm trying to build here. They will. :)

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