Deploying perl code

[David Cantrell]

Our "deployment process" at work isn't so much a well-documented
dependable repeatable process as a modern dance interpretation of
lemonparty. It needs taking out and shooting.

What tools do you use for:

* deploying code to multiple servers;
  * and multiple environments - eg live, staging, ...
    so eg we have api1.live..., api2.live..., ...
* updated/added dependencies
  * both CPANish modules and possibly OS packages such as libraries
    that those modules wrap around
* database structure updates;

I'm looking for tools that will make it easy to go from a bunch of code
in a release branch on github to an updated bunch of servers, with
minimal downtime. If it matters we're using Debian.

Is this the sort of thing that puppet and chef are for? If you've used
them are they as awesome as the hype makes out, or will they just push
me into the same murderous rage as our current bunch of incomplete shell
scripts do?

-- 
David Cantrell | Nth greatest programmer in the world

  While researching this email, I was forced to carry out some
  investigative work which unfortunately involved a bucket of
  puppies and a belt sander
    -- after JoeB, in the Monastery