Build Master, The: Microsoft’s Software Configuration Management Best Practices

Chapter 3. Daily, Not Nightly, Builds

	Philosophy: The build team drives the product forward.
	--Vincent Maraia

It’s amazing how many articles and books I have read that recommend nightly builds. Unfortunately, they mean this literally. Whenever I talk to different software companies or Microsoft product groups that do nightly builds, I always ask, “What is the success rate of your nightly build?” Most of the time, I hear “10 to 20 percent success with zero errors.” I figure the people who tell me that they have 80 to 100 percent success rates are either lying or compiling very little code every night.

I understand that the beautiful vision of a nightly build is that the build will be ready to go in the morning, all the first and second stage tests ...