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 The VCAPS Project has
had considerable success with the practice of Continuous Integration. [Continuos Integration is an attitude
towards integration where you integrate as often as possible.] A couple of key factors we found were required to
be successful:
- Unit tests are an absolute must-have. No one releases unless they run
at 100%!! If they don't, your changes are not going in.
- Everyone has collective code ownership for all of the code. That is,
each time a programming pair touches the code, it should get improved, refactored,
and simplified
- There must be a release station. No one releases from their own
workstation.
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Integrate Often!!
The longer you wait to integrate, the more pain you will create. Continuous integration (as a slogan) is done in
our environment (Visual Works Smalltalk and GemStone Smalltalk) in a matter of minutes, usually seconds! Developers
integrate multiple times per day in practice. If it takes too long to integrate your changes, then the unit of
work being released was too big! The programming pair is responsible for creating their own integration hell, or
heaven, whichever they prefer... 
Ford Motor Company |
