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Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:15:01 -0400
From: jfuller@ruminate.co.uk
Message-Id: <200407230415.i6N4F1k17022@server1.ruminate.co.uk>
Subject: Re: What continuous integration tool would you recommend?
To: "Ant Users List" <user@ant.apache.org>
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"Alexey N. Solofnenko" <A.Solofnenko@mdl.com> wrote ..
>   The problem is that is why my script is doing right now, plus more. 
> And I need only ClearCase integration from the list. Adding a reporting
> web interface is just too easy. The features I am looking for are web 
> interactive build control and partial changesets support, or at least 
> custom build loop support.

anthill pro has support for CC existing views and it can create new clearcase views

ant has CC support as optional tasks

as with most continuous integration tools, anthill pro will build 'on change' of source code held in CC...

>   At the moment it seems easier to write my own web interface than 
> updating existing products to what I need.

unless u want to do simple things....yes agreed, but u will find that your ant scripts will get unnecc complex...esp if u want to seperate your build processes along component dependencies. Managing component dependencies is prob the number one limiter to productivity in a mature development environment... 

also Having a scheduler like the tools being mentioned organises all the build artifacts...esp reporting and code doc tools...this is where Anthill Pro really shines again with many options to publish build artifacts whereever. Cant remember the last time I used the ant email tasks for notification...

Anthill OS is an OK product but Anthill pro is soooo much more full featured I recc downloading it and throwing the war into tomcat and trying it for a spin...I have used it on the largest J2EE projects and still haven't found the need to use all its features.

btw jython is great as an additional string to the build bow esp where testing is concerned, after the past few projects I use it sparingly though as I find that jython/python usage makes my scripts a bit less understandable to the general programming population...and we all know that getting 'everyone' in development to own the build process is the real goal.

the last 3 build type projects (including the current one) have seen the following mix of technologies work with with the rational toolset;

Anthill Pro: takes care of building, testing, doc, report, load testing, perf testing, scenario/functional testing...in addition to notifications and managing the publishing workflow of all the reports into an HTML format ( lots of XML/XSLT transforms)

Developer Wiki: informal glue between all the build artifacts generated...reduces the need to have someone be the webmaster....

then I publish the complete ClearCase view to an apache virtual dir (using ant, scheduled by Anthill pro of course) so that the complete SCM is available in a read only format via HTTP so that the WIKI can refer to elements in CC in the WIKI.

I intend to extend this setup by adding Xindice to hold all XML assets...XML's geometric usage in development is leading me to believe that a general XML repository with webdav/http/web services access and xpath/xslt querying will add a bit of grease to the whole development system....freeing up meta data from its file format is quite useful.

gl, Jim Fuller


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