ONJava.com: Got Project Automation?

ONJava.com: Got Project Automation?: "Got Project Automation?
by Mike Clark
11/10/2004

Editor's Note: In his new book, Pragmatic Project Automation, Mike Clark gives you soup-to-nuts recipes for automating your software project: creating one-step builds with Ant, scheduling continuous builds with CruiseControl, generating software releases at the push of a button, installing and deploying applications with ease, and monitoring builds and running programs via email, RSS, your cell phone, and, yes, even lava lamps. The recipes include working examples that make it easy for beginners to follow along, while more advanced topics teach the old hands something new. In this article, he presents an overview of the benefits that automating your project can bring.

You're on the hook to deliver a software release for a critical demo tomorrow morning. The suits in sales are frothing at the mouth to show off your company's new whiz-bang application to some very important people with deep pockets. Just as you're finding your rhythm behind the keyboard, your boss stops by to remind you that this demo could make or break the project. No pressure!
One-Step Build and Test

It's almost noon before you type in the last line of code for those 'must-have' demo features. Your favorite IDE says that your code compiles and passes its unit tests. But will your code work as expected when it's integrated with the rest of the system? To find out, you update your local workspace to get in sync with the files currently in the version control system. Then you run the project's one-step build process:"