Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
can start by running a build on a
daily
basis to get the practice going in
your organization. Remember:
CI is not just a technical implementa-
tion; it is also an organizational and cultural implementation.
People
often resist change, and the best approach for an organization may be
to add these automated mechanisms to the process piece by piece.
At first the build can just compile the source code and package the
binaries without executing the automated regression tests. This can be
effective, initially, if the developers are unfamiliar with an automated
testing tool. Once this is in place and developers have learned the test-
ing tool, you can move closer to the benefits of CI: running these tests
(and inspections) with every change.
Is CI the newest, latest, “whiz-bang” approach to software develop-
ment? Hardly. CI is simply an advance in the evolution of integrating
software. When software programs consisted of a few small files, inte-
grating them into a system was not much of a problem. The practice of
performing nightly builds has been described as a best practice for
years. Similar practices have been discussed in other topics and arti-
cles. In the topic
Microsoft Secrets
, Michael A. Cusumano and Richard
W. Selby discuss the practice of daily builds at Microsoft. Steve
McConnell, in
Software Project Survival Guide,
discusses the practice
of the “Daily Build and Smoke Test” as part of a software development
project.
In
Object Solutions: Managing the Object-Oriented Project,
Grady Booch writes, “The macro process of object-oriented develop-
ment is one of 'continuous integration'… At regular intervals, the pro-
cess of 'continuous integration' yields executable releases that grow in
functionality at every release... It is through these milestones that man-
agement can measure progress and quality, and hence anticipate, iden-
tify, and then actively attack risks on an ongoing basis.” With the
advent of XP and other Agile methodologies, and with the recom-
mended practice of CI, people began to take notice of the concept of
not just daily, but “continuous,” builds.
