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Business-leading DevOps Essentials
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Continuous Delivery 2.0
Continuous Delivery 2.0
Business-leading DevOps Essentials
Qiao Liang
First edition published 2022
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
Published with arrangement with the original publisher, Posts & Telecom Press.
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume
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and explanation without intent to infringe.
DOI: 10.1201/9781003221579
Foreword xv
Target Readers xvii
Content xix
How to Read This book? xxi
Preface 1 xxiii
Preface 2 xxv
Acknowledgement xxvii
Author’s Note xxix
Since the term “software engineering” was coined, “quality” and “efficiency” have been its goals. Most
information technology (IT) institutions have been making explorations along this path, they first came up
with the waterfall model and then Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) which has been wor-
shiped as the “Bible” by many IT groups. When the “agile movement” arose, they decided to “do” Agile;
when they heard about “Continuous Delivery”, they changed their mind to “do” Continuous Delivery.
Now DevOps has come out and swept around the IT industry, becoming topic of salons and conferences
and even hit the headline of various media. Not surprisingly, many companies cast their eyes at DevOps…
Of course, there are successful “stories”, but they seem to have nothing to do with us. Even the people
by our side cannot agree on these ideas or practices. It is so perplexing, just like walking in a fog, we can
hear beautiful sound around us and lights flickering in the distance, but we cannot see clearly the road
beneath our feet.
Years of working experience has enabled me to have a new understanding of this field, and summa-
rize and reflect on it. “Continuous Delivery” sounds attractive and catches people’s imagination. Business
people seem to see a glimmer of hope that “all the requirements presented in the morning can be devel-
oped in the afternoon”. Yet too many companies underestimate the difficulties they face. Some of these
difficulties are explicit: no automation test or automation deployment, let alone Trunk-based Development.
Some difficulties are implicit, such as the long-standing “wall” between functional departments. Business
people are unhappy about developers’ slow delivery, while developers are complaining about the unreli-
able requirements presented by business people. This is probably due to their different modes of value
thinking.
The goal of this book is to help all roles in a company change their way of value thinking, improve
the end-to-end business value delivery in software services, raise the teamwork efficiency, so as to achieve
fast verification in a safe and reliable way, and shorten the time to realize genuine business value. In other
words, the book not only elaborates on the process “from product backlog to workable software”, but also
proposes a double closed loop as “value discovery-fast verification” (see Figure 0.1), which implies the
origin of “Continuous Delivery 2.0” – title of this book.
As it turns out, there is no one-size-fits-all business management solution that will be perfect for
every business problem. However, only when managers start from the overall perspective and resist the
xv
xvi Foreword
temptation of local optimization can they lead their companies to create greater value despite of limited
resources. The book provides an overall framework, showing the principles and practices involved in each
node of the framework, as well as their strengths and constraints.
If you apply the Double-flywheels of Continuous Delivery 2.0 across a company, it is an organiza-
tional transformation at the enterprise level. If you introduce it to a team, it will be path for it to improve
it work mode. Since Continuous Delivery 2.0 is a management framework, companies are bound to tailor
it to their own circumstances. For this reason, the book contains many practical examples showing how
other businesses or teams achieved their goals by implementing these practices. These cases also show
that solutions and implementation paths are unlikely to be replicated between companies, so they must
follow the principles in the book in combination with their specific situations (product forms, stage of
business competition, size of team, personnel skills, software system architecture, as well as corporate
management mechanism and culture), and explore their own path step by step.
Target Readers
The book is intended for front-line managers of IT corporations or key technicians who are about to
become front-line managers, as well as those who are dedicated to software project management and
software process improvement. It is also valuable for founders of startups or technology executives in
fast-growing companies. It is not available for the senior managers of large and sophisticated software
companies. Of course, I’d be happy if they could take an interest in this book.
For product owners, development managers, test managers, and operations managers, this book will
give them a more comprehensive perspective on how to work, discover more information beyond of their
scope of work, and learn how to collaborate with other roles.
For process improvers or change makers, they can learn from successes or failures from other teams
or companies in the real cases discussed in this book.
For founders of startups and executives of fast-growing companies, I hope they could find some effec-
tive ways to manage and expand their businesses from the beginning at the lowest possible cost.
The real cases listed in the book will help readers fully understand the double-flywheels of Continuous
Delivery 2.0 and all necessary practices at each stage.
xvii
Content
Before getting into the main content of this book, let’s talk about the structure of this book. It consists
of three parts: Part 1 introduces the double-flywheels of Continuous Delivery 2.0. Part 2 focuses on the
issues you may encounter while using the Continuous Delivery 2.0 framework and the principles you need
to follow for making improvement. Part 3 shares typical cases about certain companies and teams for
readers to learn about varied implementation priorities and solutions. The content of this book is briefly
introduced as follows:
Part 1 describes the double-flywheels of Continuous Delivery 2.0 and the four working principles
of Continuous Delivery 2.0. It also introduces the implementation steps and related principles of the two
closed loops as Value Discovery Loop and Fast Verification Loop.
• Chapter 1 explains the inevitability of Continuous Delivery, and introduces the “Double-
flywheels of Continuous Delivery 2.0” and its four basic principles.
• Chapter 2 lists the four key steps of the Value Discovery Loop (“Discovery Loop” for short),
as well as the guiding principles and practices at each step. Continuous Delivery will be more
powerful if business problems could be subject to “lean” thinking; otherwise, it is likely to
retreat into the single-loop Continuous Delivery 1.0 with only the “Fast Verification loop”.
• Chapter 3 briefly describes the main activities and working methods at each link in the Fast
Verification loop (“Verification Loop” for short).
Part 2 expounds the working principles and implementation methods of the three plates in Continuous
Delivery 2.0 Tangram. These three plates are made up of organizational mechanism, software architec-
ture, and infrastructure. Since organizational mechanism is a complex subject, this book only discusses
the culture needed for Continuous Delivery and the four steps in creating such culture. Such contents as
organizational structure, talent structure, and incentive mechanism are about to be analyzed in the sequel
of this book. Infrastructure is the most fundamental part in the product development process. Part 2 first
introduces the deployment pipeline and tool design principles in Continuous Delivery, and then highlights
the five areas for constructing and optimizing the deployment pipeline, that is, business requirements
management, branch and configuration management, build and environment management, automation
test management, and deployment and monitoring management.
• Chapter 4 argues that the improvement of Continuous Delivery capability requires an organiza-
tional culture which is safe, credible, and constantly improvable; and introduces the four steps
implemented by Toyota and Google to improve organizational culture.
• Chapter 5 talks about the importance of software architecture in achieving fast verification
of Continuous Delivery, the characteristics of software architecture favorable for Continuous
Delivery, and three ways of software architecture transformation, namely, “demolition”, “stran-
gling”, and “decoration”.
• Chapter 6 explains how to use constraint theory and lean thinking to find bottlenecks in the
process, make team members smoothly collaborate in handling business requirements, and
increase the flow of requirements.
• Chapter 7 introduces the design principles and toolchain construction drafts for the deployment
pipeline that Fast Verification Loop relies on.
xix
xx Content
Part 3 introduces and analyzes typical cases to readers. They occurred in companies of different
types or teams of different sizes, with software products carrying varied features. All of these cases were
of my personal experience. Their background, difficulties, and solutions are introduced in detail to inspire
readers.
• Chapter 14 introduces a case happened in an Internet product team made up of 100 engineers.
This team spent a year in building the fast-running double-flywheels of Continuous Delivery 2.0,
and managed to have it operated continuously.
• Chapter 15 describes how a small team working on a large project transformed the teamwork
model from “Death March” to “zero-defect delivery” under the condition of impossible “shift-
right testing”.
• Chapter 16 shows how a microservice-oriented team transformed into a “DevOps team” in the
process of project implementation by gradually transforming infrastructure modules, improv-
ing quality and frequency of delivery, and motivating operations staff to make changes as well.
How to Read This book?
How to read this book? It depends on what do you want to get from this book. You can read it through
to learn all the knowledge applicable to my work, the reason why Continuous Delivery 2.0 is an organi-
zational capability, how to measure this capability, and how to apply principles in real scenarios to solve
specific problems.
Of course, you can read any chapter as you like to learn to improve your work. Chapters 14~16 enu-
merate some cases happened in small and large teams, as well as in a large corporation, introducing their
work methods and improvement tools in detail. You may get enlightened to find a way out of a stalemate.
Anyway, I appreciate for your feedback on this book. How do you like it? What else do you want
to know? Do you have any suggestions? You can scan the QR code below, subscribe the WeChat official
account of Continuous Delivery 2.0, or visit http://www.continuousdelivery20.com/ for extended reading.
xxi
Preface 1
I first met Qiao Liang in Beijing in 2007 when we worked together on go.cd, the first CI/CD tool to sup-
port deployment pipelines. What we learned from building that product was crucial to the development of
the material in the Continuous Delivery book.
Over the last ten years, these ideas have gone from being bleeding edge to accepted wisdom. Every
serious tech company aspires to the idea of being able to release at any time, on demand, without workers
having to spend evenings or weekends doing deployments. Being able to release software quickly, fre-
quently, and safely in turn enables delivering in small batches, which means we can get fast feedback on
our ideas. We can build prototypes and test them with real users, and avoid building features that deliver
no value to users. This, in turn, means better products, happier customers, and happier employees. These
capabilities are important for every organization that uses technology.
But it’s hard to get there. Organizations need to evolve an architecture that supports fast, effective
testing and rapid deployment, and deploy a culture of experimentation. The cultural element is essential
both for successful implementation, and to put in place the product management practices enabled by
Continuous Delivery.
Qiao Liang has worked with all kinds of organizations in China to help them implement Continuous
Delivery and realize its benefits. I can’t think of anybody better to write a book on how to implement
these ideas based on real-life experiences. I wish you every success as you experiment with getting bet-
ter at software delivery, and using that capability to build better products and services and happier, more
productive teams.
Jez Humble
Author of Continuous Delivery, co-founder and CTO of DORA
xxiii
Preface 2
We are in the second half of the mobile Internet era. This means that, for the mainstream population, the
basic needs of the head may have been met or “saturated”, and the future direction may be the subversion
of the existing model, or the full satisfaction of the long-tail personalized needs, or better serving the
needs of China’s ethnically diverse communities. In any case, I believe there is a good chance that the cost
of innovation and the likelihood of failed innovation will continue to rise in the future.
In this context, it becomes particularly important to find new opportunities quickly and reduce inno-
vation costs through extreme product development and operation efficiency. Mr. Qiao Liang is a master
in the field of software engineering. As an agile consultant of Tencent, he has worked with us for years
and experienced the whole process of the development of mobile Internet. Mr. Qiao has a thorough under-
standing of various problems in the product development and operation system, and he is tireless in the
pursuit of efficiency.
“In this rapidly changing Internet environment, how can software development teams balance quality
with speed? How to deliver software to users as quickly as possible so as to get their fastest feedback?”
Mr. Qiao and I had an in-depth discussion on these issues many years ago. “There is no balance between
quality and speed. Only product quality is ensured to certain extent, the pursuit of delivery speed is mean-
ingful”, said Mr. Qiao sharply. Unlike most consultants who like to say “It depends”, Mr. Qiao pointed
out an immutable law throughout the product life cycle. Although different product stages have differ-
ent requirements for product quality, such requirements are almost constant at the same stage. “How to
deliver product value quickly while meeting quality requirements?” The contents of this book are mainly
unfolded to answer this question.
In order to quickly identify new opportunities, the product iteration must be accelerated, but it may
increase the fixed costs in each iteration, such as the cost for product quality test and for product release.
This transactional cost greatly hinders the iteration rate of product. In this book, Mr. Qiao breaks downs
the steps for operating the Value Discovery Loop and Fast Verification Loop in Continuous Delivery. On
the one hand, it brings you new dimensions and perspectives to probe into business problems; and on the
other hand, it enlightens you to pay attention to the details in daily work to seek for optimization, which
helps to reduce the fixed costs in iteration and innovate products more efficiently. At the same time, you
will learn how to enhance the overall combat capability of your team.
This book Continuous Delivery 2.0 exhibits the theoretical framework summed up by Mr. Qiao
from a large number of practical projects; it is theoretical achievement based on solid realistic foundation.
Instead of piling up empty theories, this book introduces plenty of positive and negative examples to sup-
port the principles and methodologies in software industry. This book is a pragmatic guide, just like its
author who is a low-profile and down-to-earth person. It is especially recommended to the readers, either
researchers in software industry or practitioners dedicated to R&D of operation system with efficient soft-
ware applications. As I believe, in Internet industry, efficiency is the key to success in the future.
Zeng Yu
Vice President of Tencent
xxv
Acknowledgement
The publication of this book is attributed to many people’s hard work. First of all, I’d like to thank the
editorial team for their strong support, particularly Yang Hailing, Chief Editor of Posts & Telecom Press.
Thanks to her encouragement, I finally got up the courage to write down my consulting practices and
experiences in software development to share with more people. Though this book is not perfect, it’s a
retrospect of my years’ endeavor and a summary of industrial achievements, including theories, methods,
and practical tools. Second, I’ll thank my friend Ren Fake for his proofreading of many chapters of this
book and for his valuable suggestions. Thirdly, I’d like to thank CRC Press for publishing the English
version.
Of course, I’m grateful to my former colleagues at ThoughtWorks, especially the GoCD team and my
partner Jez Humble. I learned agile development and lean thinking from them. It was this work experi-
ence that made me proficient in Continuous Delivery practices, thereby guiding my clients solve practical
problems in recent years. Wang Pengchao, another friend of mine, ushered me into the wonderland of
Extreme Programming. He is now working in Facebook responsible for the development of Cassandra.
Finally, I must thank my wife and my son – the loves of my life. I once intended to giving up writing
this book, it was their encouragement and accompany that helped me regain confidence. My wife is the
first reader of this book, she helped me streamline and refine the language, and made the book in a more
reasonable layout.
xxvii
Author’s Note
In 2002, I happened to get the book Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change written by Kent
Beck, and couldn’t help reading it through. The software development methods introduced in the book
are utterly different from those in our actual work. The practices, such as test-driven development (TDD),
continuous integration, pair programming, and user story, seem novel and unrealistic. I kept wondering
how can a team do all of these things? So I tried some of them, but not thorough enough since I was
still a little “skeptical”. For example, I skipped over TDD, and only added some unit tests; I left out pair
programming, but insisted on code review; and I preferred daily build to continuous integration. Certain
effects started to show after a period of time, but not so significant.
Until 2005, a friend of mine showed me how did his team deliver a software project with the agile
development method and how did they write code. Each time the code was modified, a series of automa-
tion testcases were written and executed; each submission was accompanied with continuous integration.
It was a brand-new coding experience to me: developers rarely need to start the program, but detect the
problems in the code through single-step debugging. I finally came to believe agile teams at not fictitious,
they are real and not far away from me.
I joined ThoughtWorks in 2007, hoping to experience the agile development method. As a require-
ments analyst and delivery manager, I took part in the development of GoCD – an advanced CI and release
management system. My partner was Jez Humble, product owner of this project and later co-author of the
book Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation.
Many practices described in his book come from our GoCD development process. From bringing forth
the product idea to its official launch, I went through a complete product development process where I got
access to the agile development method and learned how to do Continuous Delivery.
After 2009, as an external consultant or internal coach, I started to provide consultations on transi-
tion to Agile Development and Lean Production to domestic and foreign companies. Among my clients,
there are leading PC Internet companies, traditional IT firms, powerful domestic corporations, and fast-
growing mobile Internet startups. In the process of working with my clients, I’ve gained an in-depth
understanding of “Continuous Delivery” and greater confidence in helping them realize the value of
Continuous Delivery.
Back to 2007, I was believing that many agile development practices including Extreme Programming
(XP) were a magic key for fast and high-quality software delivery. After 2010, I came to realize that
although practice itself is important, it must be supported by organizational management, and work ideas
and concepts. So I got a new pet phrase as “Don’t talk about ‘Agile’, just solve problems!”. After 2012,
more software development methods and agile genres began to prevail in China, but the core concepts
and main working principles behind them have not fundamentally changed. Regardless of the method, we
should start from “solving problems”, and an important prerequisite for doing so is to “correctly define
problems and reach a consensus”.
I’m certainly not a supporter of such absurd argument as “thought is useless”. On the contrary, I
believe that thought is essential to everyone’s cognition and understanding of things. But years’ consulting
experiences tell me that a correct understanding of things cannot ensure implementation of correct ideas
and concepts, nor can it provide direct and substantial assistance to companies. The goal of promoting
correct thoughts is to guide project teams or their customers to address difficult problems.
Just like business management, the development process of software engineering is also a process
where various methodologies emerge and develop endlessly. After the term “software engineering” was
coined in the 1960s and the waterfall software development model was proposed in the 1970s, the iterative
xxix
xxx Author’s Note
incremental development came out in 1985, Barry Boehm brought forth the Fountain Model in article A
Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement published in 1986, the Capability Maturity
Model Integration (CMMI) and various lightweight software development methods emerged in the 1990s,
the Agile Manifesto was officially released in the early 21st century, and then Lean software development
method, Kanban method, Continuous Delivery, and the DevOps movement sprang up successively in
recent years. All these changes not only reflect the rapid evolution in IT industry but also prove that no
single theory or method can solve all the problems in this industry on its own.
I do hope that this book could show a whole picture of “Continuous Delivery” to readers. When
encountering problems related to the effectiveness of IT groups, readers will be able to deal with them
reasonably based on background knowledge learned from this book. Or at least they can get inspired from
the real cases included in this book so that they can take fewer detours when facing similar problems.
Continuous
Delivery 2.0
The classic book Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment
1
Automation, since its publication almost a decade ago, is widely recognized by software technicians for
its brilliant exposition of the principles and practices for software development. It is even taken as a bible
by the practitioners in software industry in recent years when the business environment is increasingly
characterized by “VUCA”.
VUCA, an acronym of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, was initially a hot military
word in the 1990s for describing the post-Cold War multipolar world, which was volatile, uncertain,
complex, and ambiguous. This acronym had been little known before 2001, especially the 9/11 terrorist
attack. But nowadays, business leaders with strategic vision like to characterize the “new normal” busi-
ness environment, which is out of order and fast changing with VUCA.
However, when we are going to apply those principles and practices in our daily work to achieve
Continuous Delivery, we will encounter all sorts of obstacles. For example, the mounting business pres-
sure has drained us of energy for making further improvement, a tight schedule for development and test-
ing forces us to work in the old way, and the risk is too high to ensure high-quality delivery by now if we
work in a new way. These problems arise from the development inertia of software engineering, and now
it is time for revamping the model.
1 Dr. Royce also mentioned in the article that he believes in this concept, but the implementation described above is risky and
invites failure and recommended to do it twice.
DOI: 10.1201/9781003221579-1 1
2 Continuous Delivery 2.0
on document. All the software development methods that have the three “heavy” traits are collectively
referred to as the “Heavyweight Software Development Method”.
In the 20th century, each stage of the Waterfall Development Model took months. Before the first line
of product code was written out, Party A and Party B had already made significant efforts to determine
the scope of requirements, and review the software requirements specifications as long as hundreds of
pages. In spite of this, the two parties might still argue about “whether the scope of requirements has
changed”, “whether the software is delivered on time”, or “whether the delivered software meets the pre-
set business requirements”.
domain specialists. A software delivery plan involves multiple iterations, with each iteration giving rise to
a runnable software in the end (see Figure 1.2).
Since the Waterfall Model cannot bring forth a runnable software until the later stage of the project,
the Agile Method seems to be more superior in this regard. “Continuous Integration” – an engineering
practice while employing the Agile Method – was first adopted by a wider information technology (IT)
sector, including the teams that had not tried any Agile Method, because it stresses frequent automation
builds and testing, which prevent quality assurance (QA) team from doing repetitive work and smoothen
its communication with development team.
The most requests for IT at that time were those enterprise-level customized software applications.
Although the iterative model was employed for Agile Method, the interval between two software releases
was often as long as months or even more than a year. Therefore, the contradiction between business
personnel and the delivery team regarding requirements changes and delivery efficiency remained as the
principal contradiction. The deployment and release of an application took less costs of time and money
in the entire delivery cycle, so the deployment activities did not have any prominent contradiction with
the work of operation and maintenance. Besides, the deployment was usually performed by a dedicated
technical operation team, and free from bothering the research and development (R&D) team.
In this period, the top concern of software industry was neither the Waterfall nor the Agile Method,
but the deliverable software assemblies themselves. To be specific, what it concerned about was how to
quickly turn business requirements into deliverable software assemblies.
In fact, at the time of writing this book, a uniform definition of DevOps was not yet available. Just like
every practitioner or every firm has their own view of “Agile”, they may look at DevOps in different ways.
4 Continuous Delivery 2.0
Some people regard DevOps as a subset of Agile, some people argue that “if Agile was done correctly, it
would be DevOps”, while some people go so far as to say that DevOps is a set of practices centering on
automation and it is more or less associated with Agile.
DevOps originated from the application of Agile thinking and practice in development and opera-
tions, however the guidance on how to achieve the goal of DevOps was little at that time. Fortunately, the
book Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation,
which came out almost in the same period, has made DevOps more concrete and more actionable in daily
work. It sets out a series of principles, methodologies, and practices for participants in the DevOps move-
ment to follow, such as the strongly advocated principles of “everything is code, automating everything,
and early feedback by deployment pipeline”.
From my view, DevOps is not a criterion, a pattern or a set of fixed methods, but a trend for manage-
ment of IT organizations. That is to say, it is able to break the barriers between the functional departments
of an IT organization in various ways, transform their original cooperation model and make them better
integrated, so as to further expedite their business iteration. This trend is sure to change the existing roles
and division of labor within an IT organization, and even affect relevant business structure. In the case
of Internet companies, software plays an extremely critical role in their business development; in other
words, their business performance is closely bound up with IT efficiency, that’s why they are more moti-
vated and anxious to conform to this trend.
As a trend for management of IT organizations, DevOps is universally applicable in the domain of IT.
But for IT organizations in different industries and enterprises, their management should be customized
according to industry characteristics and specific situations of enterprises.
Testing and deployment can be a difficult and time-consuming process in complex environments com-
prising application servers, messaging infrastructure and interfaces to external systems. We have seen
deployments take several days, even in cases where teams have used automation builds to ensure their
code is fully tested.
In this paper we describe principles and practices which allow new environments to be created, config-
ured and deployed to at the click of a button. We show how to fully automate your testing and deployment
process using a multi-stage automation workflow. Using this “deployment production line”, it is possible
to deploy fully tested code into production environments quickly and with full confidence that you can fall
back to a previous version easily should a problem occur.
The above three authors were all working at ThoughtWorks – an initiator, practitioner, and promoter
of the Agile Method. The software development methods adopted by this company are also derived from
XP. These authors not only introduced the prototype of the “deployment production line” in combination
of their own practices, but also presented four basic principles to address the most common challenges
facing automation of the build and deployment process.
These principles are:
1. Each build stage should deliver working software – don’t have separate stages for intermediate
artifacts such as frameworks.
2. Deploy the same artifacts in every environment – manage your runtime configuration separately.
3. Automate testing and deployment – use several independent testing stages.
4. Evolve your production line along with the application it assembles.
1 • Continuous Delivery 2.0 5
In 2007, David Farley, also from ThoughtWorks, published a paper titled The Deployment Pipeline –
Extending the Range of Continuous Integration, explaining that the “deployment pipeline”2 is to tie
together multiple quality verification levels and their validation content in an automation way, as shown
in Figure 1.3.
In December of the same year, ThoughtWorks formed a team in Beijing to build a tool for manage-
ment of software continuous release by adopting the concept of “deployment pipeline”. Jez Humble was
the product manager, and I was responsible for the product delivery and business analysis. The first
version of this product was released in July 2008 by the name of “Cruise” (now known as “GoCD”3).
Its most important feature is “deployment pipeline”, and the design of most features (including built-in
artifact repository and reference to multi-stage artifacts) embodies the “Build once, Run anywhere”
principle.
While being busy with the R&D of GoCD, Jez Humble and David Farley coauthored a book
Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation, with
its English version published in 2010, and Chinese version coming out in 2011 and winning the Jolt Award
in the same year, marking an official debut of the term “Continuous Delivery”. According to Jez Humble,
“Continuous Delivery is the ability to get changes of all types – including new features, configuration
changes, bug fixes and experiments – into production, or into the hands of users, safely and quickly in a
sustainable way”. It should be noted that Continuous Delivery defined like this is written as “Continuous
Delivery 1.0” in this book for distinguishing from “Continuous Delivery 2.0” (see Section 1.2).
In their book, Jez Humble and David Farley have discussed the philosophies, principles, methods, and
practices of Continuous Delivery 1.0, and emphasized in the final chapter of the book that “Continuous
delivery is more than just a new delivery methodology. It is a whole new paradigm for running a business
that depends on software”4.
Lots of the principles and methods of Continuous Delivery 1.0 are concrete operational guidelines
for the DevOps movement, meaning that they can guide companies’ IT teams to carry out the spirit of the
DevOps movement (see Figure 1.4).
FIGURE 1.4 Continuous delivery 1.0 puts the release button back to the business side.
2 https://continuousdelivery.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/The-Deployment-Pipeline-by-Dave-Farley-2007.pdf
3 https://github.com/gocd
4 “Paradigm” is a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and
generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated. To put it simply, “paradigm = philosophies +
methods”.
6 Continuous Delivery 2.0
The collaborators involved in Agile method are mostly product managers, software developers and
testers, and DevOps is more related to delivery teams (including developers and testers) and DevOps engi-
neers, while Continuous Delivery 1.0 involves product demand side, software R&D teams, and DevOps
engineers (see Figure 1.5).
In their coauthored book Lean Thinking (1996), James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones pointed out
that the Lean Thinking is to guide enterprises to define their production value according to user require-
ments, organize all production activities based on the value stream, draw the value flow between produc-
tion activities and provide on-demand products, so as to identify the wastes inadvertently arise from the
productive process and then have them eliminated.
According to the theory of Lean Thinking, “wastes” refer to the production activities or management
processes that do not add value to quality products or services from the perspective of customers. This
theory has summed up two types of production activities: value-added and non-value-added activities,
with the latter identified as “wastes”. Those activities labelled as “wastes” are further divided into neces-
sary and unnecessary non-value-added activities, with the latter synonymous with pure wastes. From the
customers’ point of view, necessary non-value-added activities, although create no value, can help to avoid
(potentially) greater wastes or reduce systemic risks (see Figure 1.8).
For example, assembly on a production line is a value-added activity, and quality inspection is a nec-
essary non-value-added activity, but waiting for production due to scant material supply and rework due to
quality defects are regarded as unnecessary wastes. In the full life cycle of SaaS, short for “Software-
as-a-Service”, there are also multiple “wastes”, such as ineffective features, waiting in each production
link (see Figure 1.9), unattended documents, software defects, and mechanical duplication of work.
Although “eliminating all wastes” is almost impossible, we still need to fully implement the philoso-
phy of “identifying and eliminating all wastes”, and keep optimizing processes and working methods to
achieve high-quality, low-cost, risk-free, and fast delivery of customer value.
closed-loop starting from raising problems to solving problems, which is known as the “double-fly-
wheels” of Continuous Delivery 2.0.
It consists of two connected loops: The first one is the “Discovery Loop”, mainly aiming at identi-
fying and defining the business problems and working out a minimum viable solution for entering the
second loop, namely, the “Verification Loop”. The main objective of the second loop is to deliver the
minimum viable solution at the top speed, collect real feedback in a reliable manner, analyze and verify
the effect of this solution so as to determine the next action, as shown in Figure 1.10.
The Discovery Loop consists of four steps in a sustainable cycle: questioning, targeting, co-creation,
and refining.
1. “Questioning” is to define problems. By raising targeted questions to customers, we can find out
their specific requirements, and the underlying reasons for these requirements, that is, the fun-
damental problems to be addressed after satisfying these requirements. In this way, the project
team can know well about what goals they will achieve or what problems they will solve. Any
problems in vague definition will lead to biased solutions. So we must clearly define problems
before searching for their solutions.
2. “Targeting” is to define the target designator. After defining the business problems, we should
collect and analyze the relevant data, remove interference information, identify assumptions,
obtain the appropriate measurable metrics, and use them to describe the current situation, and
at the same time discuss and define the desired outcome of our next action.
3. “Co-creation” is to jointly discover a variety of viable solutions to a problem, solve this problem
together in a creative manner, or have these solutions to be verified.
4. “Refining” is to select the minimum viable solution from all viable solutions. It may be a single
solution or a combination of multiple solutions.
The Verification Loop also consists of four steps in a sustainable cycle: building, running, monitor-
ing, and decision-making.
1. “Building” is to accurately convert the minimum viable solution into a software package that
meets the quality requirements according to the non-digital description.
2. “Running” is to deploy the software package that meets the quality requirements in a produc-
tion environment or pass it on to users and make it at their service.
3. “Monitoring” is to collect the data generated in the production system and monitor the system
to ensure its normal operation. At the same time, it presents the business data in an appropriate
form and in a timely manner.
4. “Decision-making” is to analyze the collected data and compare them with the corresponding
target obtained at the Discovery Loop, so as to decide the direction of the next step.
The Discovery Loop is like the front wheels of a car that decide its driving direction, while the
Verification Loop is like the rear wheels that drive the car to go fast and smoothly. The two loops are
supporting each other: the smaller scale of the viable solution generated at the Discovery Loop can speed
up the running of the Verification Loop; while the more rapidly running Verification Loop can help the
Discovery Loop to get real feedback as soon as possible, which is to the benefit of quick decision-making
and timely verification or adjustment of the direction of progress.
The four essential principles for accelerating the double-flywheels of Continuous Delivery 2.0 are
introduced as follows:
5 See https://ai.stanford.edu/~ronnyk/ExPThinkWeek2009Public.pdf
12 Continuous Delivery 2.0
1.3 SUMMARY
Continuous Delivery 2.0 is based on the two philosophies of Continuous Delivery 1.0: “quick software
release in a sustainable way” and “MVP” for lean startup. It stresses to be business-oriented, decompose
business problems from the beginning, and find the correct direction of progress quickly through continu-
ous scientific discovery and rapid verification while reducing waste, which is referred to as the “Double-
flywheels Model”. Therefore, Continuous Delivery 2.0 involves multiple teams in an organization, and
requires their close cooperation to shorten the cycle of the double-flywheels, as shown in Figure 1.12.
1 • Continuous Delivery 2.0 13
Continuous Delivery 2.0 follows four essential working principles: doing less, continuous decomposi-
tion of problems, insistence on FBB, and continuous improvement and measurement. Only in this way can
we keep accelerating double-flywheels of continuous delivery and speed up user feedback, and thereby
improving business agility. This requires leadership to overcome the “fear of failure”, replace the original
thinking model of software delivery management with the one of “scientific discovery – fast delivery”,
attempt quick trial and error, improve continuous delivery capability, and then develop existing businesses
and look for new business opportunities.
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THE SERVANT OF GOD
SR. THÉRÈSE OF THE CHILD JESUS
AND OF THE HOLY FACE
Carmelite of the Monastery of Lisieux 1873-1897
“Blessed Margaret Mary having had two whitlows used to say she
had only really suffered from the first one, because it had not been
possible for her to hide the second from her Sisters, and thus it
became the object of their compassion.
“This feeling is natural to us; yet to wish that all should know when
we suffer is a very commonplace manner of acting.”
counsels and reminiscences
During the first months of her illness it was on her hard palliasse that
Sister Thérèse passed the time of rest, and her nights were very
bad: when asked whether she did not need some assistance during
those hours of pain, she replied: “Oh, no on the contrary, I think
myself very fortunate to be in a cell distant enough for my Sisters not
to hear me. I rejoice to suffer alone; but from the moment I am pitied
and surrounded with delicate attentions I can no longer feel this joy.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
The Sister infirmarian remarking, “It is said that you have never
suffered very much.” Thérèse smiled and pointing to a glass
containing a draught of medicine, bright red in colour, replied, “See
this little glass, one would imagine it full of some choice liqueur, but
in reality I take nothing that is more bitter. Well! it is an image of my
life; to the eyes of others it has ever appeared clothed in the most
radiant hues; to them it seemed as though I drank a delicious liqueur,
while in truth it was bitterness. I say bitterness, and yet my life has
not been bitter, for I have known how to make of all bitterness my
sweetness and my joy.”
“You are in great pain at this moment, are you not?” “Yes ... but I
have so much desired to suffer.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
“How it grieves us to see you suffer, and to think you may perhaps
have still more to endure,” the novices were saying to her.
“Oh! do not be troubled about me, I have arrived at the stage of
being no longer able to suffer, because all suffering is sweet to me.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
A sister, who doubted her patience, noticed, when visiting her one
day, an expression of heavenly joy on her countenance and wished
to know the reason. “It is because of the very acute pain I am
feeling,” replied Thérèse, “I have always striven to love suffering and
to give it a cordial welcome.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
“Why are you so gay this morning?” she was asked; “It is because I
have had two little trials, nothing gives me little joys like little trials.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
Another time: “You have had a great many trials today.”
“Yes, but ... seeing that I love them!... I love everything the good God
sends me.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
Again, when some one said to her: “It is dreadful—all you are
suffering.”
“No, it is not dreadful; could a little Victim of Love find anything
dreadful that her Spouse sends her? He gives me at each moment
what I can bear; not more; and the minute He increases my
sufferings He also augments my fortitude.
“Yet I could never ask for greater sufferings, for I am too little; they
would be my own—my own choosing, then I should have to bear
them by myself, and I have never been able to do anything all
alone.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
During her long and painful agony she exclaimed: “The chalice is full
to the brim. Never could I have believed it possible to suffer so
much.... I can only find the explanation in my extreme longing to
save souls.... Oh! I would not suffer less.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
FOOTNOTES:
[88] No reader should be discouraged by this chapter on
Suffering. What Sœur Thérèse says is very consoling for those
who are nailed to the Cross; and others must remember that God
had given to His humble Servant a sensible attraction for
suffering, which is a rare grace and reserved to very few souls,
though many imagine they possess it, and mistake their road
choosing to follow this supposed attraction. Without the sensible
desire and even though experiencing an invincible repugnance to
suffer, souls can be sanctified. What pleases God is that the
suffering be borne with love.
[89] Imit., III, ch. xxvi, 3.
[90] Ps., xci, 5.
[91] Cf. Eccles., xxiv, 29.
[92] Matt., xxvi, 39.
[93] Isa., lxiii, 3.
[94] Isa., lxiii, 5.
THE DIRECTION OF SOULS
Our Lord allowed me the consolation of closely studying the souls of
children.
Considering these innocent souls I used to compare them to soft
wax, upon which any impression may be stamped, the bad, alas! like
the good; and I understood those words of Jesus: “But he that shall
scandalize one of these little ones ... it were better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in
the depth of the sea.”[95] Oh! how many souls might attain to a high
degree of holiness if wisely guided from the very first.
I well know that to accomplish His work of sanctification, God has
need of no one, but just as He enables a skilful gardener to rear
plants that are delicate and rare, granting him for this end all the
knowledge necessary, while reserving to Himself the care of giving
the increase, so, too, does He will to be aided in His divine culture of
souls.
hist. d’une ame, ch. v
As soon as I penetrated into the sanctuary of souls I judged at the
first glance that the task exceeded my powers, and very quickly
placing myself in the arms of the good God I imitated the little child,
who, seized with sudden fear, tries to hide its golden head on its
father’s shoulder, and I said: “Lord, Thou knowest it, I am myself too
little to be capable of nurturing these Thy children; if Thou dost will to
give to them, through me, what is suited to each one, fill Thou my
little hand, and without leaving Thine arms, without even turning my
head aside, I will distribute Thy treasures to the souls who come to
me to seek sustenance. When they find it to their liking I shall know
that it is not to me they owe it but to Thee; on the other hand if they
complain, and find bitter what I offer them, my peace shall remain
undisturbed, I will try to convince them that this nutriment comes
from Thee, and I will carefully refrain from seeking any other for
them.”
When I thus understood that it was impossible for me to do anything
by myself, the task appeared to me simplified. Interiorly, I occupied
myself solely in trying to become more and more united to God—
knowing that the rest would be added unto me.
hist. d’une ame, ch. x
From afar it seems easy to do good to souls, to make them love God
more, to mould them after our own views and opinions. But coming
closer one feels, on the contrary, that to do good without the divine
assistance, is as impossible a thing as to bring the sun back after it
has set. One feels that it is absolutely necessary to forget our own
inclinations, our personal notions, and to guide souls, not by our own
way—the way we ourselves go—but by the particular way that Jesus
wishes to lead them.
hist. d’une ame, ch. x
When very young, and staying with my aunt, a book was given to me
to read. In one of the stories I saw that the mistress of a school was
much praised because she knew how to get on cleverly in the world
without offending anyone. This phrase I remarked especially: “She
would say to the one, ‘You are not wrong,’ and to the other, ‘You are
right;’” and while I read I was thinking: “Oh!... I would not have acted
thus; we must always tell the truth.” And so I do, always. Far more
difficult it certainly is, for when told of some little vexatious
occurrence, it would be easy to lay blame on the absent, and she
who complains would at once be pacified. Yes, but ... I do quite the
reverse. If I am not liked, what matter! Let no one come to me who
does not want to hear the truth.
counsels and reminiscences
That a reprimand may be fruitful it must cost in the giving; and it
must be given without a shade of passion in the heart.
One must not let kindness degenerate into weakness. When we
have blamed justly we ought to leave it so, and not yield to feelings
of distress at having given pain. To run after the aggrieved one in
order to console her, is to do more harm than good. To leave her to
herself is to force her to expect nothing from creatures, to have
recourse to the good God, to see her failings and to humble herself.
Otherwise she would grow accustomed to being consoled after a
deserved rebuke and would behave as does a spoilt child, who
stamps and cries, well knowing that this will make its mother return
to wipe away the tears.
counsels and reminiscences
Let the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, abound in your
lips and hearts.[96] If we have to do with a difficult soul, let us not be
discouraged, nor ever abandon her. Let us have always “the sword
of the Spirit” to reprehend her for her faults, and not allow things to
pass for the sake of leaving ourselves in repose; let us fight
unceasingly, even without hope of gaining the victory. What matter
about success! Let us fight on, whatever be the weariness of the
struggle. Let us not say: “I can make nothing of this soul, she does
not understand; I must give it up.” Oh! what cowardice that would be.
We must do our duty unto the end.
[Sœur Thérèse in these passages refers to her charge as
Mistress of Novices.]
counsels and reminiscences
The novices expressed their surprise at finding that she guessed
their most hidden thoughts.
“Here is my secret,” she said to them: “I never give you any advice
without invoking the Blessed Virgin; I ask her to inspire me to say
what will do you the most good, and I myself am often astonished at
the things that I teach you. I simply feel in saying them to you, that I
am not deceived and that Jesus speaks to you by my mouth.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
“Give us some advice as to how we ought to act concerning our
spiritual direction,” they said to her.
“With great simplicity and without depending too much on
assistance, which may fail you at any moment. You would soon be
forced to say with the Spouse in the Canticles: ‘The keepers ... took
away my veil from me and wounded me,’ it was only ‘when I had a
little passed by them I found Him whom my soul loveth.’[97] If with
detachment you humbly inquire where is your Beloved, the keepers
will direct you. Nevertheless, most frequently, you will find Jesus only
after you have passed by all creatures. For my part, I have many a
time repeated this verse of the Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the
Cross:
Send me no more
A messenger
Who cannot tell me what I seek.
All they who serve
Relate a thousand graces of Thee;
And all wound me more and more,
And they leave me dying,
While they babble I know not what.”
Trans. D. Lewis, M. A.
counsels and reminiscences
FOOTNOTES:
[95] Matt., xviii, 6.
[96] Ephes., vi, 17.
[97] Cant., v, 7; iii, 4.
THE BLESSED VIRGIN
How I love the Blessed Virgin! Had I been a Priest, oh! how I should
have spoken of her. She is represented as unapproachable, rather
ought she to be shown as imitable. She is more Mother than Queen.
I have heard it said that all the Saints are eclipsed by her radiant
brightness as the sun at rising makes the stars disappear. How
strange that seems—a mother eclipsing the glory of her children! I
think quite the contrary. I believe that she will immensely increase
the splendour of the elect.... The Virgin Mary! how simple does her
life appear to me....
hist. d’une ame, ch. xii
Sometimes I find myself saying to the Holy Virgin: “Do you know, O
cherished Mother, that I think myself more fortunate than you? I have
you for Mother and you have not, like me, the Blessed Virgin to
love.... You are, it is true, the Mother of Jesus, but you have given
Him to me, and He, from the cross gave you to us as our Mother, so
we are richer than you. Of old it was your desire that you might be
the little handmaiden of the Mother of God; and I, poor little creature,
I am, not your servant, but your child: you are the Mother of Jesus
and you are my Mother.”
xiii letter to her sister céline
O Mary, if I were Queen of Heaven and thou wert Thérèse, I fain
would be Thérèse to see thee Queen of Heaven!
8 September, 1897.
Last words written by Sister Thérèse
of the Child Jesus.
VARIOUS SUBJECTS
Léonie, no doubt finding that she was growing too old to play with
dolls, came one day to Céline and me, with a basket full of dolls’
clothes, odds and ends of pretty materials, trimmings, etc., on which
she had laid her doll, saying to us: “There, little sisters—choose!”
Céline looked, and took a knot of edging. After reflecting a moment I,
in turn, put out my hand saying: “I choose all!” and I carried off
basket and doll without further ceremony.
This trait of my childhood is, as it were, a summary of my entire life.
Later on when the meaning of perfection began to unfold itself to me,
I understood that to become a saint it is necessary to suffer much,
ever to seek after that which is most perfect, and to forget self. I
understood that in sanctity the degrees are many, that each soul is
free to respond to the advances of our Lord, to do little or much for
His sake, in a word, to choose between the sacrifices that He asks.
Then, as in the days of my childhood, I exclaimed: “My God, I
choose all! I do not wish to be a saint by halves; the thought of
suffering for Thee does not frighten me, one thing only do I fear—my
own will; take Thou my will, for I choose all that Thou willest.”
hist. d’une ame, ch. i
My Father took me for a pleasant tour during which I began to know
a little of the world. Around me all was gaiety and delight; I was
made welcome, petted, admired, in short, for fifteen days the
pathway of my life was strewn with naught but flowers. Holy Wisdom
well says that the bewitching of trifles overturneth the innocent mind.
[98] At the age of ten the heart easily allows itself to be dazzled, and I
own that this sort of life had some charms for me. Alas! how well the
world contrives to reconcile the delights of earth with the service of
God. How seldom does it think of death.
And death, nevertheless, has come to a great many of the people
whom I then knew, young, rich and prosperous. I like to go back in
thought to their beautiful dwellings, to ask myself where are they,
and what benefit do they now draw from the castles and parks where
I saw them enjoying all the comforts of life.... And I reflect that “all is
vanity”[99] “but to love God and to serve Him alone.”[100]
hist. d’une ame, ch. iv
What compassion I have for souls who are going astray. It is so easy
to lose one’s way in the flowery paths of the world. Undoubtedly for a
soul who has risen a little above the things of earth, the sweetness
offered is intermingled with bitterness, and the immense void of its
desires cannot be filled by the praises of a moment.
hist. d’une ame, ch. iv
We have but life’s brief day to save souls and thus to give to Jesus
proof of our love. The morrow of this day will be Eternity and then He
will render to you a hundredfold for the joys which you have
sacrificed for Him. He knows the extent of your sacrifice, He knows
that the grief of those dear to you increases your own still more; but
to save our souls He has Himself suffered this martyrdom. He too,
left His Mother, He saw the Immaculate Virgin stand at the foot of the
Cross, her heart transpierced by the sword of sorrow.
Ah! if the Divine Master would but grant to those whom you are
going to leave for His sake, a foresight of the glory He reserves for
you, the multitude of souls who in heaven will form your train, they
would be already recompensed for their great sacrifice in parting with
you.
ii letter to her missionary “brothers”
The good God has promised a hundredfold to all who have left father
or mother or sister for love of Him. These words are, I know, usually
applied to those who have entered the religious state, but in my
heart I feel that they were also spoken for the generous parents who
make to God the sacrifice of children whom they cherish more than
self.
letter to her cousin jeanne guérin
How can a heart given up to human affection be united intimately to
God? That, I feel is not possible. I have seen so many souls deluded
by this treacherous light, dart into it like the poor moth and burn their
wings, then return wounded to Jesus, the Divine Fire which burns
without consuming.
hist. d’une ame, ch. iv
In giving oneself to God the heart does not lose its natural
tenderness; on the contrary, its love grows deeper by becoming
more pure and more Christlike.
hist. d’une ame, ch. ix
There are souls for whom God’s mercy wearies not of waiting, and to
whom He gives His light only by degrees.
hist. d’une ame, ch. x
When in the morning we feel no courage, no energy for the practice
of virtue, this is a grace, this is the moment to “lay the axe to the root
of the tree”[101] depending solely on Jesus. If we fall all is retrieved
by an act of love, and Jesus smiles. He helps us without appearing
to do so, and the tears which the wicked cause Him to shed are
dried by our poor feeble love.
ii letter to her sister céline
We must practice the little virtues. This is difficult sometimes, but the
good God never refuses the first grace, which gives courage to
conquer self: if the soul corresponds to it she will find that she
immediately receives light. I have ever been struck with those words
of praise to Judith: “Thou hast done manfully, and thy heart has been
strengthened.”[102] We must first act with courage, then the heart is
strengthened and we go from victory to victory.
counsels and reminiscences
My God, how varied are the ways by which Thou dost lead souls. In
reading the Lives of the Saints we find a great number of whom
nothing has remained to us after their death: not the smallest
souvenir, not a written line. Others there are, on the contrary, like our
Holy Mother Saint Teresa, who have enriched the Church with their
sublime doctrine, not fearing to reveal the secrets of the King,[103] in
the hope that souls might know Him better and love Him more.
Which of these two ways pleases our Lord best? It seems to me that
they are equally pleasing to Him.
All the well-beloved of God have followed the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit by whom the Prophet wrote: “Say to the just that all is
well.”[104] Yes, all is well when we seek only the Divine Will.
hist. d’une ame, ch. ix
How narrow are the thoughts of creatures! When they see that a soul
has lights which surpass their own, they conclude that the Divine
Master loves them less. Since when, then, has He lost the right to
make use of one of His creatures, in order to dispense to His
children the sustenance needful for them?
hist. d’une ame, ch. x
When we are grieved at our powerlessness to do good, our only
resource is to offer to God the works of others. In this you see the
benefit of the communion of Saints.
counsel and reminiscences
Though I do not undervalue beautiful thoughts that seem to unite us
to God, I have long understood that we must carefully guard against
leaning too much upon them. The most sublime inspirations are
nothing without deeds.
Other souls, it is true, may draw therefrom much profit if they testify
humble gratitude to God for being permitted to share the feast of one
of His privileged children. But if the privileged one were to grow vain
of her spiritual riches, if her prayer resembled that of the Pharisee,
she herself would become like to a person starving to death before a
well-served table while all her guests take from it abundant
nourishment, and cast perhaps a look of envy on the possessor of so
much wealth.
hist. d’une ame, ch. x
The Well-Beloved has no need of our glorious deeds nor of our fine
thoughts. If He desire sublime conceptions has He not His Angels,
whose knowledge surpasses infinitely that of the world’s greatest
geniuses? It is not then either intellect or talent that He looks for here
below.... He has called Himself the Flower of the Field[105] to show
us how much He cherishes simplicity.
xiv letter to her sister céline
To keep the word of Jesus, this is the sole condition of our
happiness, the proof of our love for Him; and this word—it seems to
me that it is Himself, since He is called the Uncreated Word of the
Father.
xviii letter to her sister céline
Jesus needs neither books nor Doctors of Divinity in order to instruct
souls; He, the Doctor of Doctors, He teaches without noise of words.
hist. d’une ame, ch. viii
As Text there is a verse which I utter unwillingly each day. It is this:
“Inclinavi cor meum ad faciendas justificationes tuas in æternum,
propter retributionem.” (I have inclined my heart to do Thy
justifications for ever, because of the reward.)[106] Interiorly, I hasten
to say: “O my Jesus, Thou knowest well that it is not for the reward I
serve Thee, but solely because I love Thee, and for the sake of
saving souls.”
counsels and reminiscences
In Heaven only shall we see the absolute truth concerning all things.
On earth, even in the Holy Scripture, there is a certain obscurity: it
grieves me to see differences in the translations; had I been a Priest
I would have learned Hebrew, so that I might be able to read the
Word of God in that human language in which He deigned to
express it.
counsels and reminiscences
We are not yet in our Fatherland, and temptation must purify us as
gold is purified by the action of fire.
xviii letter to her sister céline
It is best not to expose oneself to the combat when defeat is certain.
hist. d’une ame, ch. ix
God is often satisfied with our desire of labouring for His glory.
hist. d’une ame, ch. ix
A soul in the state of grace has nothing to fear from the demons,
who are cowards, capable of flight before the gaze of a child.
hist. d’une ame, ch. i
To the pure all is pure,[107] the simple and upright soul sees not evil
in anything, since evil exists in impure hearts only and not in material
objects.
hist. d’une ame, ch. vi
The good God has told us that in the Last Day He “will wipe away all
tears from our eyes,”[108] and without doubt, the more tears to be
dried, the greater will be the consolation.
iii letter to sr. marie du sacré-cœur
The Spouse in the Canticles, not having been able in repose to find
her Beloved, arose, she says and went about the city to seek Him,
but in vain ... she could not find Him save beyond the ramparts. It is
not the will of Jesus that we should find His adorable Presence
without effort. He hides Himself, He envelopes Himself with
darkness.... It was not thus He acted in regard to the multitudes, for
we read in the Gospels that the people were in admiration when He
spoke.
Weak souls Jesus charmed by His divine utterances. He was trying
to render them strong for the day of temptation and of trial; but small,
truly, was the number of His faithful friends when He was silent[109]
before His judges. Oh, what melody for my heart is that silence of
the Divine Master.
xv letter to her sister céline
I have read in the Holy Gospel that the Divine Shepherd leaves in
the desert all His faithful flock, to go in haste after the sheep that is
lost. How touching is this confidence. He is sure of them, they are
captives of love—how could they break away? Even so does the
well-beloved Shepherd of our souls rob us of the sense of His
presence in order to give to sinners His consolations; or else, if He
leads us to Mount Thabor it is for one moment ... the valleys are
nearly always the place of pasture, it is there He takes His repose at
mid-day.[110]
xvi letter to her sister céline
The sole crime with which Herod reproached our Lord was folly ...
and frankly, that charge was true. Yes, it was folly to come seeking
the poor shallow hearts of mortals, therein to make His throne. He,
the King of Glory Who sitteth above the Cherubim! Was not His
happiness complete in the company of His Father and the Spirit of
Love? Why come to earth to seek out sinners and to make of them
His friends, His chosen companions?
xx letter to her sister céline
Mary, breaking the fragile vase poured out upon the Head of her
Saviour a perfume of great price[111] and the whole house was filled
with the fragrance thereof.[112]
The Apostles murmured against Magdalene; and this it is which still
happens with regard to us: some, even of the most fervent Christians
think we (Carmelites) are exaggerated, that like Martha we ought to
serve Jesus, instead of consecrating to Him the vases of our lives
with the perfumes which are hidden within. And yet what matters it—
the breaking of these vases—since our Lord is consoled, and the
world in spite of itself is made sensible of the fragrance they exhale.
And oh! how necessary are these perfumes to purify the unhealthy
atmosphere that it breathes.
xx letter to her sister céline
“One day when I was in tears,” relates a novice, “Sister Thérèse of
the Child Jesus told me to acquire a habit of hiding my little troubles,
adding that nothing renders community life more difficult than
inequality of temperament.
“You are quite right,” I answered, “I have thought so myself, and in
future I shall never cry but when alone with the good God; to Him
only shall I confide my trials, He will always understand and console
me.”
“Shed tears before the good God!” she replied with vivacity, “take
care you do no such thing. Still less, by far, before Him than before
creatures ought you to exhibit signs of sadness. He has but our
monasteries, this dear Master, to rejoice His Heart; He comes
amongst us to find a little repose, to forget the continual lamentations
of His friends in the world who for the most part, instead of
recognizing the value of the Cross, meet it with repining and with
tears; and would you behave like the generality of people?... Frankly
that is not disinterested love—disinterested love is for us to console
Jesus, not for Him to console us.
“He is, I know, so kind of heart that if you weep He will dry your
tears; but afterwards He will go away quite sorrowful, not being able
to find in you the repose He sought. Jesus loves the joyous heart, He
loves the ever smiling soul. When will you learn to hide your troubles
from Him, or to tell Him in gladsome tones that you are happy to
suffer for His sake?”
counsels and reminiscences
The soul is reflected in the countenance: like to a little child always
content, your countenance should be invariably calm and serene.
When you are alone be still the same, because you are ever in the
Angels’ sight.
counsels and reminiscences
Our Divine Lord wishes to have His court here below as on High, He
desires angel-martyrs, angel-apostles.
xi letter to her sister céline
A sister, greatly grieved at seeing her so ill often exclaimed: “Oh,
how sad is life!” But Sœur Thérèse would at once correct her,