On 23 June 2011 03:45, Alexander Sack asac@linaro.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 3:20 AM, Zach Pfeffer zach.pfeffer@linaro.org wrote:
Or we could just use continuous integration where there are no freezes, just per change regression tests.
thats the idealistic goal yes, but getting even close there takes a bit and I am not sure if full continuous integration in the sense that you can land even massive patchsets the day before release just relying on your automated tests is something that can ever happen. e.g. you will always end up with some explicit release process with some kind of restrictions on what type of change is acceptable right before the release etc.
With CI loops you tend to not do massive patches, which helps things out. Your point is taken though. CI solves the "end of the month" problem because all the work is already done, you just scrape the results. Since you're always integrating then there's non of this back and forth with tarballs and patches, its just totally streamlined. It dramatically increases the quality and quantity of software that you can produce.
Basically as long as you ever discover any issue through manual testing that you didn't catch through automation before means you are still not ready to do full continuous integration.
Its a spectrum. In reality you still need to bake things. But the CI loop solves the software delivery into a common image beautifully.