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Scheduled Builds
A one-step build process is a gift that keeps on giving. Every time you push the button that runs a build, it will feel like you’re getting something for free. This is the beauty of com- manded automation. Invest just a wee bit of time and get lots of time back. In this chapter we’ll take the next automation step: letting a computer push the build button for us.
Scheduled automation takes the one-step build you created
and runs it for you, as often as you want, without you ever
lifting a finger. You can still run the build manually if you
need to, but in the typical case the computer will do it for
you. And it turns out that having a machine running builds
continuously does more than just save some typing.
Scheduled builds find both integration (compile time) and failing
test (run time) problems quickly because they run at regular
intervals. For example, if the schedule says to run a build
at the top of every hour, then every 60 minutes you’ll know
if the build is broken. This makes finding problems easier
because you have to look only at changes that occurred in that
interval. It also makes fixing problems easier because little
problems don’t have a chance to compound into big problems.
And because finding and fixing problems is easier, you’re less
constrained by fear.
How is a scheduled build any different from, say, all the programmers
running the build file every few minutes? Well, I
don’t know many programmers that want to do that. They’ve
usually got better things to do. The build cycle might take
software configuration management
Last updated 697 days ago by scmuser
