ThoughtWorks Presents: Agile Hong Kong - Continuous Integration with Chris Stevenson

This past Tuesday evening Chris Stevenson gave a talk on Continuous Integration at the ThoughtWorks Hong Kong

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as part of the Agile Hong Kong series.

The event started off with a short explanation of what Continuous Integration is, citing Martin Fowler’s authoritative article. He has written a number of software development books focused on design and has held the title of ‘Chief Scientist’ at ThoughtWorks since 2000.

During his talk Chris stressed that “Continuous Integration is not a tool, it is a software development process.” He hit four major points: revision control, automated testing, automated building, and automated deployment. The idea is integrate as often as possible and check in after completing the smallest testable functionality. Automated builds and tests ensure successful integrations and detect problems while they are still manageable, enabling the product to be automatically deployed.

The talk was followed by a short demo of Cruise, ThoughtWorks’ management software to be released next week. It is based upon the open and freely available Cruise Control.

Here’s an excerpt from the Cruise website

Cruise is a continuous integration and release management system that enables teams to quickly and confidently release their code from development to production. It provides visibility into the deployment pipeline, allowing new builds to be tested in automated or manual steps in staging environments. The result is lower risk when deploying, fewer production defects, faster release cycles, and empowered teams.

Here are a few photos from the event.

Thanks to Chris and Conrad from ThoughtWorks for hosting the session, I’m looking forward to future events.