This book is about getting computer programs from one machine to another and having them still work when they get there. This is the problem of software deployment. Though it is a part of the field of Software Configuration Management (SCM), it has not been a subject of academic study until quite recently. The development of principles and tools to support the deployment process has largely been relegated to industry, system administrators, and Unix hackers. This has resulted in a large number of often ad hoc tools that typically automate manual practices but do not address...