A funny thing happened on the way to site-building

It all started when I tried to sql-sync my database from my local setup to my remote test server.

drush sql-sync @dev @test
ssh: Could not resolve hostname @dev: Name or service not known

hm. So I google my error and find an issue on the Drush Github project for the exact same problem. Awesome! it's already been fixed. So I just need to update drush.

Having previously installed drush as a git repository, I cd over to that dir and and do a git pull. yes? Well along the way I notice that the drush github page now suggests installing with Composer instead, so I decide to update to that process. Probably I could've just stuck with my previous method, but in the interest of doing things "the right way"... this is where I keep getting myself in trouble. Ok:

composer global update
#tried composer -V and global update just to see where I stood...
Warning: This development build of composer is over 30 days old. It is recommended to update it by running "/usr/local/bin/composer self-update" to get the latest version.
...
Composer could not find a composer.json file in /Users/E/.composer
...
drush (master)$ /usr/local/bin/composer self-update                                                             [Composer\Downloader\TransportException]                                  
  The "https://getcomposer.org/version" file could not be downloaded: allow_u
  rl_fopen must be enabled in php.ini...

Sigh. So I fix allow_url_fopen. I run composer self-update. I try to install drush again... composer.json?? It took a bit more research to get this right, and I honestly don't remember what I did now. But here's what it wound up as:

{
    "require": {
        "drush/drush": "dev-master"
    }
}


Swell. I think at this point I managed to run the command to get drush re-installed. Now I've got the version of drush with the fix for my original issue! or so I thought... I took a closer look at the code fix for the ssh problem, found that file in my install and compared. The code didn't match, but the hash when I had updated with composer showed it was the most recent version! I had the new updates, but I also had the old git clone of drush. Guess which one my shell was pointing at?

Eventually. Eventually I check which drush, where drush, what drush?? and find my bash_profile export PATH pointing in too many directions (wrong!: /Applications/drush/drush:/.composer/vendor/bin:), which if I'd been paying slightly more attention I might've noticed in step one of installing with Composer. Removed the old path, kept the .composer path and I think that's when it finally worked.

At least I'm pretty sure that's what happened. By the time I was done with this I had completely forgotten that I was trying to sql-sync. So I finally, finally got back to that and it actually just worked. So now I need to figure out pushing the rest of my initial local dev stuff up and after that it'll all be pushing code up and pulling data down.

It's going to be really weird doing front-end work after spending so much time on configuring and getting things to just function... one day at a time.