Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk

Foreword by Martin Fowler^[*]

In my early days in the software industry, one of the most awkward and tense moments of a software project was integration. Modules that worked individually were put together and the whole usually failed in ways that were infuriatingly difficult to find. Yet in the last few years, integration has largely vanished as a source of pain for projects, diminishing to a nonevent.

The essence of this transformation is the practice of integrating more frequently. At one point a daily build was considered to be an ambitious target. Most projects I talk to now integrate many times a day. Oddly enough, it seems that when you run into a painful activity, a good tip is to do it more often.

One of the interesting things about Continuous ...