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Deployment Should Take Five Minutes, Not Five Hours

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Deployment speed matters, folks. If it takes you five hours to push code to production, you’re not deploying—you’re performing a ritual. It should take less than five minutes, and most of that should just be build time. Anything more, and you need to rethink your entire development process. Hard.

The Flyswatter vs. the Sledgehammer

Picture this: I’ve got a simple script to deploy. A flyswatter of a task. But thanks to rigid IT security rules—crafted by people who think "serverless" is a forbidden incantation—I’m stuck. No lightweight, free-tier stack like Supabase or Vercel for me. Oh no. Instead, I’m handed a sledgehammer: AWS, RDS, Lambda, API Gateway, S3. Overkill much? Setting this up isn’t just slow; it’s a small act of God. And the maintenance? A full-time job I didn’t sign up for. Why use a massive infra to kill a fly when a rolled-up newspaper would do?

Manual Testing: The Excel Chronicles

Then there’s the testing. The policy enforcers—bless their hearts—don’t trust automated tests. So, it’s manual everything. Days of poking at the system, followed by manual QA wizards meticulously documenting every click in Excel. Yes, Excel. In 2025. I’d laugh if it didn’t hurt so much. What should be a quick deploy turns into a multi-day saga because the people enforcing this don’t have good testing habits. Meanwhile, I’m over here wondering if they’ve heard of CI/CD or if that’s also banned under the "no fun allowed" doctrine.

Agentic Code: The Train You Don’t See Coming

Here’s the kicker: while you’re busy with your five-hour deployments and Excel heroics, agentic code is rising. AI-driven tools that write, deploy, and optimize faster than you can say "pull request" are here. If that freaks you out, good. You’re a deer in headlights, and the train’s coming. This isn’t just about tech—it’s economics. Your way costs orders of magnitude more. Five hours versus five minutes isn’t just a time gap; it’s a competitive chasm. Clinging to bloated infra and manual processes doesn’t make you secure; it makes you obsolete.

Wake Up or Get Left Behind

Rethinking your development process isn’t optional—it’s survival. Ditch the sledgehammer for a flyswatter where it makes sense. Embrace tools that let you move fast without breaking things. And for the love of all that is holy, automate your testing. Agentic code isn’t waiting for you to catch up. If you don’t adapt, you’re not just slow—you’re roadkill.