Exploring Declarative vs. Scripted pipelines, Jenkinsfiles, and the plugin ecosystem.
Jenkins is one of the oldest and most widely used open-source automation servers. Its immense flexibility and a massive ecosystem of over a thousand plugins make it a powerful choice for CI/CD. The modern way to define pipelines in Jenkins is through a 'Jenkinsfile', which is a text file that contains the definition of a Jenkins pipeline and is checked into source control. This is known as 'Pipeline as Code'. There are two syntaxes for writing a Jenkinsfile: Declarative and Scripted. Declarative Pipeline is a more recent and simplified syntax. It provides a more structured and opinionated way to define your pipeline, making it easier to read and write. It has a predefined hierarchy of sections like 'pipeline', 'agent', 'stages', and 'steps'. Scripted Pipeline, on the other hand, is a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) based on Groovy. It offers far more flexibility and expressiveness, allowing you to write complex logic, loops, and conditional statements directly within your pipeline script. The power of Jenkins is greatly extended by its plugin ecosystem. There are plugins for integrating with virtually any tool or technology you can think of, from version control systems and build tools to cloud providers and testing frameworks. This extensibility allows teams to create highly customized CI/CD workflows tailored to their specific needs.