Picture a young boy. He just finished a few months worth of work. He’s proud of what he accomplished yet fearful whether it will work. He did not yet try it out on a “real” server. This will be the first time he’ll deliver the fruits of his work.

He takes a floppy disk out from a drawer, inserts it into his computer, and copies the files he compiled previously. He feels fortunate that perforated cards are a thing of the past.

He gets up from his desk, exits the office, and walks towards his car. It will take him over two hours to get to the building with servers. He’s not happy with the prospect of having to drive for two hours, but there is no better alternative. He could have sent the floppy with a messenger, but that would do no good since he wants to install the software himself. He needs to be there. There is no remote option.

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A while later, he enters the room with the servers, inserts the floppy disk, and copies and installs the software. Fifteen minutes later, his face shows signs of stress. Something is not working as expected. There is an unforeseen problem. He’s collecting outputs and writing notes. He’s doing his best to stay calm and gather as much info as he can. He’s dreading a long ride back to his computer and days, maybe even weeks, until he figures out what caused the problem and fixes it. He’ll be back and install the fix. Perhaps it will work the second time. More likely it won’t.

So, this was a glimpse from the past. We can imagine the uncertainty and the effort one needed to put for getting a simple deployment task done.