Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Compile
Source Code
Integrate
Database
F
e
e
d
b
a
c
k
Integrate
Run
Tests
Run
Inspections
Deploy
Software
Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk
FIGURE 4-1
Building your software to improve software quality and reduce risk
By writing automated build scripts, you reduce the number of manual,
repetitive, and error-prone processes performed on a software project.
What is a
software build?
Is a build just compiling software com-
ponents? Is a build compiling components
and
running automated
tests? Is it a build only if inspections are included? A build can be any
of these, yet the processes that you include in a build can more effec-
tively reduce risks; however, the more processes added to a build, the
slower the feedback. Therefore, you must determine which processes
to include in an automated build. For example, in Chapter 2 we
described the practice of running a
private build,
which consists of
integrating changes from the team, and running a
full
build (which
may include compile, test, inspections, etc.) on your workstation prior
to committing code to the version control repository to prevent broken
