Software Build Systems: Principles and Experience

Chapter 15. Build Machines

In contrast to the last chapter’s discussion on keeping the source code and build description under version control, this chapter focuses more on the underlying build machines (see Figure 15.1). A build machine may be upgraded on a regular basis as new versions of the operating system become available. Naturally, some amount of management is required to ensure that a change to a build machine doesn’t break the build process.

Figure 15.1 Big-picture diagram, focusing on the build machine.

A typical build environment includes many compilation tools. Some are a standard part of the operating system, but others probably ...