Chapter 1. Understanding continuous integration
This chapter covers
- Continuous integration theory
- A Hello World CI example
- A preliminary list of CI tools
As developers, we’re interested in creating the best possible applications for our customers with the least amount of work. But with applications becoming more complex and having more moving parts, creating great applications is getting harder, even with advances in tools such as Visual Studio and the .NET Framework.
One of the keys to improving applications and productivity is to automate some of the work. Continuous integration (CI) is one of the best ways to do this.
Have you ever written code that did its small task perfectly, but then discovered unexpected side effects when you integrated that piece of code with the rest of the application? Do you always have success integrating your code with code from other developers? Have you ever shipped an application, only to find that it didn’t work for the customer but you couldn’t duplicate the error? Can you always predictably measure the state of the code for your current project? CI helps alleviate these problems and more.