{"id":278079,"date":"2018-11-09T08:06:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T15:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/css-tricks.com\/?p=278079"},"modified":"2018-11-09T08:06:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T15:06:23","slug":"whens-the-last-time-you-sftpd-or-the-like-into-a-server-and-changed-a-file-directly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/whens-the-last-time-you-sftpd-or-the-like-into-a-server-and-changed-a-file-directly\/","title":{"rendered":"When&#8217;s the last time you SFTP&#8217;d (or the like) into a server and changed a file directly?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the grand tradition of every single poll question I&#8217;ve ever posted, the poll below has a has a fundamental flaw. In this case, there is no option between &#8220;In the last month&#8221; and &#8220;Never&#8221; but, alas, the results are interesting:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">When&#39;s the last time you SFTP&#39;d (or the equiv) into a server and changed a file directly?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/chriscoyier\/status\/1049751598509879296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">October 9, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>What I was trying to get at with this poll is how many people do and don&#8217;t do any sort of editing of production files directly and instead work locally. I don&#8217;t think I need to launch a major investigation to know that it&#8217;s <em>most people<\/em> and <em>more than in the past<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>Most workflows these days have us working locally and pushing new and updated files through a version control system, and even through systems beyond that, perhaps <a href=\"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/continuous-integration-the-what-why-and-how\/\">continuous integration processes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/demystifying-javascript-testing\/\">testing processes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/introducing-github-actions\/\">actions<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/static-file-hosting-doesnt-have-to-be-so-static\/\">deployment<\/a> &mdash; it&#8217;s big world of DevOps out there! Rarely do we skip the line and dip our fingers into production servers and make live manipulations. Cowboy coding, they sometimes call it.<\/p>\n<p>But just because you don&#8217;t <em>generally code<\/em> that way doesn&#8217;t mean you <em>never do it<\/em>, which is another flaw of this poll. I know DevOps nerds who are constantly SSH-ing into servers to manipulate configuration files. I personally still hop into Coda and will directly SFTP into servers sometimes to edit <code>.htaccess<\/code> files, which are sometimes on my production sites and dev sites and that I generally <code>.gitignore<\/code>. <\/p>\n<p>Anyways, I think this is a fun thing to talk about, so feel free to have at it in the comments. I&#8217;d love to hear to what degree you cowboy code. Still do it all the time and love it? Do you do it because you haven&#8217;t learned another way or that&#8217;s how your workplace demands? Do you have a personal philosophy about it? Let the rodeo begin. &#x1f920;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the grand tradition of every single poll question I&#8217;ve ever posted, the poll below has a has a fundamental flaw. In this case, there is no option between &#8220;In the last month&#8221; and &#8220;Never&#8221; but, alas, the results are interesting: When&#39;s the last time you SFTP&#39;d (or the equiv) into a server and changed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":278188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"sig_custom_text":"","sig_image_type":"featured-image","sig_custom_image":0,"sig_is_disabled":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"c2c_always_allow_admin_comments":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"When's the last time you SFTP'd (or the like) into a server and changed a file directly?","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[1046,1047,818],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/poll-ftp.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":250980,"url":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/poll-developers-run-wordpress-locally\/","url_meta":{"origin":278079,"position":0},"title":"A Poll on How Developers Run WordPress Locally","date":"February 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I really have no idea how this will turn out. I suspect a ton of you have run or are currently running WordPress locally, but I have no clear guess on what the most popular way is to do that right now. [poll id=\"56\"] Let's limit the poll to how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/vagrant-docker-mamp.png?fit=801%2C256&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":336855,"url":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/building-a-full-stack-geo-distributed-serverless-app-with-macrometa-gatsbyjs-github-pages\/","url_meta":{"origin":278079,"position":1},"title":"Building a Full-Stack Geo-Distributed Serverless App with Macrometa, GatsbyJS, &#038; GitHub Pages","date":"March 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In this article, we walk through building out a full-stack real-time and completely serverless application that allows you to create polls! All of the app\u2019s static bits (HTML, CSS, JS, & Media) will be hosted and globally distributed via the GitHub Pages CDN (Content Delivery Network). All of the data\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sponsored&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/polls-collection.png?fit=1200%2C636&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13424,"url":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/poll-results-cdn-or-local\/","url_meta":{"origin":278079,"position":2},"title":"Poll Results: Large file on major CDN or small file local","date":"July 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I quite enjoyed this poll because the results were so neck and neck. It was only in the last week or so that a clear winner has emerged. Like all polls ever run in the history of this website, there is lots of things to consider and the poll was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/results-server.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":251505,"url":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/gitftp-deploy\/","url_meta":{"origin":278079,"position":3},"title":"GitFTP-Deploy","date":"February 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's set the scene. Say you are a web freelancer and are almost finished with a client's new website. Over the years, you have learned the hard way not to edit the files directly over FTP. It's too easy to make breaking changes with no record of what changed and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/half-window.png?fit=1200%2C324&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1169,"url":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/poll-results-how-do-you-back-up-your-websites\/","url_meta":{"origin":278079,"position":4},"title":"Poll Results: How do you back up your websites?","date":"October 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's nice to hear so many people have a backup plan! It's probably a much rarer situation that your web host loses your data than it is that your own computer fails. But still... backups can save your ass in a major way. 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