Azure Pipelines - Use YAML not Classic UI

[@vitgid]

I wish there was yaml for release pipelines. I like how deployments are separated in the release pipeline. yaml deployments are good for a couple environments, but when you have 25 environments to deploy to, you need some visual representation what, when and where you have deployed your releases, in yaml it is impossible to track large amount of environments.

[@JulieNgTech]

There's no good OOTB that I know of to do that, at least not for pipelines. Picking how you slice jobs, stages, etc. will let you leverage some of the tooling UI to do that. But I know what you mean. My honest opinion is that I miss my custom Jenkins dashboards, which did exactly that. And because they are custom, it's possible to configure something useful for 25 environments. Most default OOTB tooling falls flat after 3-5 🤷‍♀️

[@kiranrajr457]

Awesome loved it

[@JulieNgTech]

Thank you!!

[@JohnJohnson-ng2os]

Sorry, but you're missing out on an important fact. Iteration with a GUI is much easier than with a programming/scripting/templating language. I completely understand the appeal of pipelines as code, however, you miss out on that ability to rapidly iterate when you use Azure DevOps classic pipelines. For me, it's much easier to disable a task, add a new one in and then deploy as opposed to writing some yaml, committing it to a repo the hoping it works when I subsequently deploy.

[@JohnJohnson-ng2os]

But, keen to hear your thoughts.

[@JulieNgTech]

I agree, it's easiest and faster to iterate with the UI. I think it's OK to do when starting out. But once you figured out how you want your pipeline to function, you should really consider switching to YAML. Again that's not Microsoft specific, it's where the industry as a whole is heading. But yes, I feel your getting started pain. That's why I miss Jenkins, where you can test pipeline code directly in the UI without having to use git.

[@flyspb]

@@JulieNgTech Why then not to build the proper UI on top of yaml? Yaml is plain horrible, regardless of where the industry is heading to. Take Logic Apps as an example, there is an excellent UI designer, but what's underneath is JSON which can be stored in source control and tracked for changnes, etc.. Thanks for excellent tutorials!