Friday, November 04, 2005

The importance of being daily built.

Yesterday I was reading "The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code" : I had already read that article, but yesterday I've given it more than a thought.

Among other things, my mind was caught by the third item : "Do you make daily builds?".

My answer was "no", and my question was: why is this so important?
Yes, I said, they are a good thing and let your team check every day if their new commits do not break old builds ... but I didn't give it much importance.

So, at the end of the day, I committed my daily work, closed orwell (for those who don't know, orwell is my linux box), and came back home.

What happened while coming back, was that ... my mind reminded me that I had forgiven to commit also some libraries needed to compile my daily work!!!
And yes, I actually broke the build ... understanding, by experience, how much daily builds are useful.

So, don't be lazy (yes, I know how much hard may be this ...).... and take one or two minutes, at the end of the day, for daily testing your builds!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hell, no! Install a continuous integration system to build and test everything automatically for you, so you won't have to remeber to do it.

Sergio Bossa said...

Hi Ugo,

I know of continuous integration systems, but badly I've never used one.

I know of Apache Continuum, Apache Gump and Cruise Control.

Any Suggestions?