MSDN Magazine - March 2008 - (Page 70)

Jay Flowers CI Redefine Your Build Process With Continuous Integration hen using a Continuous Integration (CI) system, team members integrate application components early and often, up to several integrations a day per developer. Lest that idea set your teeth on edge, note that each integration is immediately checked and verified by an automated build to find any errors instantly. While the concept of CI might take some getting used to, it can be a valuable system. A basic principle of a CI system is that the word build needs to be redefined. Formerly, you might have thought of a build as simply a compilation. When it comes to CI, you must understand that the definition of build now includes the all-important steps of verification and testing. CI depends on the presence of tests. Without tests, all you have is continuous compilation. Since developers are the main users of a CI system, they will determine whether the system is a success or a failure. Developers really only want two things: a build that takes less than five minutes and an easy way to find the cause of a build failure. Success will also depend on your team’s build etiquette. I recommend these simple guidelines: • Never leave the building if you have broken the build. • Don’t submit to a broken build. • Be nice. When you see that the build is broken, look at the build report. If you know how to fix the issue, contact the developer that broke the build and offer to help. 70 msdnmagazine Server Lowering the Cost of Adoption My recent experience suggests that a growing number of development shops are adopting CI as a best practice, and many more would get on the wagon if the cost of adoption was lower. It can take a veteran programmer a couple of days to get a basic CI server up and running; a neophyte might take up to a week. The frustrating thing is that 80 percent of the work performed preparing a CI server and 80 percent of the work done by the server are the same—clean up after the previous build, get the latest source This article uses the following technologies: MSBuild This article discusses: A basic CI server ✥ Launching builds and tests ✥ Source control and reports ✥ Setting up CI Factory ✥ Code download available at: msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/code08.aspx Jay Flowers is the creator of the CI Factory open source project. He contributed the CI Factory section to the book Windows Developer Power Tools. Jay has also been involved in the MbUnit project and other smaller open source projects. His enthusiasm for software development is evident in the articles and blog posts on jayflowers.com. http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/code08.aspx http://jayflowers.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of MSDN Magazine - March 2008

MSDN Magazine - March 2008 Contents Toolbox CLR Inside Out Data Points Advanced Basics Office Space Introducing ASP.NET MVC Loosen Up CI Server Performance Office Development Test Run Security Briefs Extreme ASP.NET Foundations .NET Matters {End Bracket}

MSDN Magazine - March 2008

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