WHITE PAPERS SPONSORED PROFILES JOB BOARD WEBINAR CENTER FREE SOFTWARE BZ RESEARCH ALMSHAREPOINT EVENTS CALENDAR PRINT/PDF EDITION PRINT/PDF BACK ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE TODAY CUSTOMER SERVICE EDITORIAL CALENDAR EDITORIAL BEATS GUEST VIEW GUIDE SD TIMES 100 GUIDE EVENTS CALENDAR ADVERTISING ARTICLE REPRINTS REPORT A BUG SITE MAP

ABOUT US BZ MEDIA NEWS BZ RESEARCH NEWS ON MONDAY SPTECHREPORT SPTECHWEB SPTECHCON IPHONE/IPAD DEVCON ANDROID DEVCON PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US

HOME >> COLUMNS

Integrate, Then Mutilate, Your Code

By Andrew Binstock

June 15, 2007 — (Page 1 of 2)
One of the most important trends emerging in software development is the adoption of continuous integration. While developers, especially agile developers, have known of the benefits of continuous integration since the late 1990s, only now is it starting to gain real traction.

Part of the long delay, I believe, is the result of the misleading name, which communicates little about the actual process. Continuous integration (CI) is neither continuous, nor does it really integrate anything. In its most basic form, CI is the practice of building the entire project whenever code is checked into the SCM. This baseline definition is a little limited as all CI products also can run unit tests on the completed build. They then use some notification system to alert developers if the build has been broken or if unit tests have failed.

The key benefit of CI is that broken code is flagged right away. This enables the developer who checked it in to get immediate feedback, rather than waiting for the nightly (or weekly build), when the details of the code’s behavior have already begun to grow dim. By immediate detection of the problems, resolution can be implemented at the earliest possible point, which is also the least expensive moment to do so.

There are many CI packages available on the market today; most of them are free, open source tools. The most well known is CruiseControl (cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net), although it has many open source and commercial competitors. (For an extensive comparison of the features of the major products, go to damagecontrol.codehaus.org/Continuous+Integration+Server+Feature+Matrix.)

Recently, the interest in CI by commercial vendors has begun to pick up steam. Agitar bundles CruiseControl in its flagship AgitarOne product. And Borland just released Gauntlet, which has numerous important features that I’ll touch on in a later column.

Unlike most server-oriented software, CI products are fairly easy to install and configure, and they integrate easily with most major SCM systems in use today. Moreover, CI servers run happily on low-horsepower hardware. After all, they monitor code repositories, kick off builds and various scripts, and then report results: nothing terribly demanding.

Pages 1 2

Share this link: http://sdt.bz/30740

Most Read Latest News Blog Resources

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible

Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers

ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists

Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles

Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.

The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...

Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...

Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...

Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...

Technorati

Digg

Slashdot

Facebook

Friendfeed

Twitter

del.icio.us

Appcelerator buys Particle Code to beef up HTML5 mobile Web capabilities The company's second acquisition of the year gives it the ability to provide additional services for mobile HTML5 development

Zeichick’s Take: Let it code, let it code, let it code Are developers really 80% as efficient when stuck at home?

Making the case for code review Research shows organizations benefit from catching bugs earlier, but formalized processes for reviews haven’t kept pace

Add comment

Name*
Email*
Country

Comment

Appcelerator buys Particle Code to beef up HTML5 mobile Web capabilities
The company's second acquisition of the year gives it the ability to provide additional services for mobile HTML5 development Read More...

News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST