Climbing the Anthill
Going through the java.blogs (trying not to get too annoyed at some) and found this great post about Anthill on Mike's blog.
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Recently I've been chatting with Erik Hatcher, co-author of the outstanding book Java Development With Ant, about [Cruise Control] and he clued me in to AntHill. It seems we've been down similar paths and he found greener fields. Now I'm sold.
AntHill is an open source tool for automating and controlling the build process. Think of it as a transparent wrapper around Ant that lets you schedule when Ant tasks are run, then publishes the results of each run. It integrates seamlessly with many configuration management tools, including my personal favorite - CVS. When the customizable timer pops for a project, it goes about building it if anything has changed. After running the default or preset Ant tasks, it dumps the results to a time-stamped result file and optionally sends out email notifications including a status and a link to the result file. It can also tag the source repository with a one-up label after each build so that any build is repeatable. It's very similar to CruiseControl in these respects, but much easier to install and configure in my experience. Administration is all performed through an intuitive web interface, and you can force an unscheduled build at any time. I had it building and testing an existing project in less than 5 minutes.
So find a snickering processor and put it to work. You'll have peace of mind knowing your code is continuously integrated and tested. And you'll have more time to do other stuff...
Very cool! Thanks Mike!
I'm a big believer in CVS Blame - a daily process that checks your code out of CVS and tries to build it, and if it doesn't build, it then sends an email out to the entire team with a subject line like "Russell BROKE THE BUILD". It's a great motivator to double check your code. ;-)
-Russ