Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
oper forgot to check in a file or had some failed tests. Rapid
response is imperative when using CI because of the frequency
of changes.
•
Additional hardware/software costs
—To effectively use CI, a
separate integration machine should be acquired, which is a
nominal expense when compared to the more expensive costs of
finding problems later in the development lifecycle.
•
Developers should be performing these activities
—Some-
times management feels like CI is just duplicating the activities
that developers should be performing anyway. Yes, developers
should be performing some of these activities, but they need to
perform them
more effectively and reliably in a separate envi-
ronment.
Leveraging automated tools can improve the efficiency
and frequency of these activities. Additionally, it ensures that
these activities are performed in a clean environment, which will
reduce assumptions and lead to better decision making.
It's often surprising to learn the level of automation of most develop-
ment organizations. Developers spend most of their time automating
processes for their users, yet don't always see ways to automate their
own development processes. Sometimes teams believe their automation
is sufficient because they've written a few scripts to eliminate some
steps in the development process. The following is a typical scenario.
Joan (Developer):
…I already automated that. I wrote some batch
scripts that drop and recreate the database tables.
Sue (Technical Lead):
That's great. Did you apply it to the CVS
repository?
Joan:
No.
Sue:
Did you make it a part of the build script?
Joan:
No.
Sue:
So, if it's not a part of the CI system then it's not really auto-
mated yet… right?
