Okay, here’s my attempt at writing a blog post in the requested style, based on the topic “alexander jenkins”.
Alright folks, so I messed around with this “alexander jenkins” thing the other day, and thought I’d share what I learned. No BS, just straight up what I did.
First off, I had no freakin’ clue what I was doing. I’d heard the name tossed around, but never really dug into it. So, naturally, I started with the obvious: Google. Typed in “alexander jenkins” and just started clicking links.
Turns out, this Alexander Jenkins dude… well, there’s a few of ’em. But the one that seemed most interesting was something about some CI/CD pipelines or whatever. Sounded complicated. Figured I’d give it a shot anyway.
I found this one tutorial online that seemed pretty straightforward. Basically, it said I needed to download this Jenkins thing. So I did. Big ol’ file, took like, a half hour to download. While it was downloading, I grabbed a cup of coffee. Priorities, people.
Okay, download done. Installed the thing. Click, click, click, “next, next, next”, agree to some terms I definitely didn’t read. You know the drill.
Then, BAM! Login screen. “Where do I get the password?” I thought. More Googling. Turns out, the password’s in some file somewhere. Had to hunt that sucker down. Felt like I was defusing a bomb or something. Finally found it. Logged in.
Now I’m staring at this… dashboard thing. It’s overwhelming. Buttons everywhere. Options galore. I just wanted to make something happen. So I clicked on “New Item”.
It asked me what kind of “job” I wanted to create. Chose the “Freestyle project” option ’cause, honestly, it sounded the least intimidating. Gave it a name, like “MyFirstJenkinsJob” or something equally creative.
Next, it threw a million more options at me. Source Code Management, Build Triggers, Build Environment, Build… Ugh. I was starting to regret this whole thing. But I pressed on.
For Source Code Management, I linked it to my Github account. Had to create a new access token and all that jazz. More Googling. More clicking. More frustration. But I got it working. Finally.
Then, for the “Build” step, I just told it to execute a simple shell command: echo "Hello, Jenkins!". Figured that’s a good starting point.
Clicked “Save”. Then clicked “Build Now”. And… it worked! Sort of. It ran the build, and I could see the output in the console. It said “Hello, Jenkins!”. Small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
After that, I messed around with some more complex stuff. Tried building a simple Java project. That was a whole other can of worms. Had to install some plugins and configure everything just right. Took me a couple of hours to get it working properly.
But hey, I learned a bunch in the process. Jenkins is still kinda confusing, but I’m starting to get the hang of it. Definitely something I’ll keep playing around with. Maybe I’ll even try to automate my entire workflow one day. Who knows?
Anyway, that’s my Alexander Jenkins adventure. Hope it was somewhat helpful. Or at least entertaining. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go grab another cup of coffee. I’ve earned it.
