Software Tools That Make Life Easier: Part One
a.. Do you spend more time fighting your tools than writing code?
b.. Do you avoid merging your code with your teammates because of “Integration Hell”?
c.. Do the same bugs keep sneaking back into your product?
d.. Do your builds depend on the roll of the dice?
A good set of infrastructure tools can go a long way toward smoothing out these and other problems. Come see how to make your toolset work seamlessly in the background so you can Just Work. We'll cover source code management (SCM), build scripts, automated test harnesses, automatic builds, feature tracking and issue tracking.
As part of the session, we'll set up Subversion, create a project, and then add code for the SCM section … just to obliterate the “it takes too much time to set up and use” argument. For build scripts, we'll add an Ant script. Let's throw in a few JUnits to demonstrate test automation, and then I'll put it all together in CruiseControl. The live demo will include breaking the build, then breaking the JUnit test, and then finally fixing it and seeing it all work.
For this first session, we'll look at Subversion, Ant, and start the Cruise Control discussion.
About Jared Richardson
Jared Richardson, co-author of Ship It! A Practical Guide to Successful
Software Projects, is a speaker, consultant, and mentor with NFJS One. Jared has been in the industry for more than fifteen years as a consultant, developer, tester, and manager.
Jared can be found online at Agile Artisans.