Continuous Integration: More Than Just A Toolset

Does your team spend days integrating code at the end of a project? Continuous Integration can help. Using Continuous Integration will eliminate that end-of-project integration stress, and at the same time will make your development process easier. But Continuous Integration is more than just a tool like Hudson, TeamCity, or CruiseControl.Net; it is a full development process designed to bring you closer to your source control mainline, increase visibility of project status throughout your team, and to streamline deployments to QA or to your client. Find out what Continuous Integration is all about, and what it can do for you.

Jay Harris is a .NET developer in Southeast Michigan and an independent software consultant at Arana Software ( http://www.aranasoft.com ). He has been developing on the web for 15 years, since he abandoned VB3 for JavaScript because he didn't have to wait for a compile. With a career focus on end-user experience, he is a strong advocate of practices and processes that improve quality through code, ranging from automated testing, continuous integration, and performance analysis, to designing applications from the perspective of the user instead of the database. Jay is also active in the developer community beyond speaking, including serving as President of Ann Arbor .Net Developers ( http://www.aadnd.org ) an d as an organizer fo r Lansing Give Camp. When not coding, he is usually blogging to http://www.cptloadtest.com or playing games on his Xbox 360.

Overview of the Problem Integration is a pain What is Continuous Integration? Integration doesn't have to be a pain It is a process, not a tool Why do continuous Integration Distance from trunk == Integration Time ^ 2 Analogy : Continuously Integrating your Brain When to do Continuous Integration? Always. Continuously. That's the point.

Stay Current : Use SCM, and Use It Often Distance from trunk == Integration Time ^ 2 Code, Test, Integrate, Test, Repeat. Measure Status : Write "Self-Testing Code“ Tests identify what works / what doesn't Not dependent upon TDD. Importance on writing tests, not writing tests first. Keep It Clean: Use an Integration Machine Case : You forgot to add an important file to SCM. "Works on my box.” Integration Machine trumps "Works on my box." Success on Integration Machine is all that matters. Point of Truth. Maintain Visibility : What's the Build Status? Build Status should be quickly and readily available to anyone, anytime