Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice in which developers regularly integrate their code changes into a shared repository.
This process is automated, and typically includes building, testing, and deploying the code.
Developers integrate code into a shared repository several times a day.
Changes are verified at the build
- An automated build then verifies check-in
- This enables teams to detect problems early.
- If Build is unsuccessful, the system notifies Developer
Why do we need Continuous Integration?
Continuous Integration ensures that the codebase is always stable and releasable, allowing for faster development and delivery of new features and bug fixes. Additionally, it helps in identifying the bugs early and fixing them immediately.
- Less back-tracking
- Continuous Integration is cheap
- Short and Easy Integrations
- Increase visibility
- Detech issues early
- Less time debugging
CI Important principles
- Automation: The process of building, testing, and deploying code should be automated as much as possible to reduce human error and increase efficiency.
- Frequent Integration: Developers should integrate their code changes into the shared repository frequently, ideally several times a day, to detect and resolve integration issues early.
- Early Detection and Resolution of Integration Issues: Integration issues should be detected and resolved as soon as possible to prevent them from becoming more difficult and time-consuming to fix.
- Building and Testing the Code: The code should be built and tested automatically after each integration to ensure that it is functional and free of defects.
- Code Review and Quality Assurance: Code changes should be reviewed and approved by other team members before they are integrated into the shared repository.
- Continuous Deployment: The code should be ready to deploy at all times so that new features and bug fixes can be released to users as quickly as possible.
- Metrics: Metrics should be collected and analyzed to monitor the status of the build, test, and deployment process and identify areas for improvement.
Famous Companies that Adopted CI
Many well-known companies use Continuous Integration (CI) in their software development process; some examples include:
- Google: Google uses CI to ensure that code changes are integrated and tested frequently, which helps to detect and fix issues early on.
- Amazon: Amazon uses CI to automatically build, test and deploy code changes multiple times per day, which helps to ensure that their services are always available to their customers.
- Netflix: Netflix uses CI to test its code changes against many test scenarios and infrastructure configurations. This helps them to ensure that their code is reliable and can handle different types of traffic and usage.
- Facebook: Facebook uses CI to ensure that the code changes are tested, built, and deployed quickly and frequently. This helps them to deliver new features and bug fixes to their users as soon as possible.
- Uber: Uber uses CI to automate the testing, building, and deployment process so that they can deliver new features and bug fixes to their users quickly.
- Airbnb: Airbnb uses CI to ensure that code changes are integrated and tested frequently, which helps to detect and fix issues early on.
These are just a few examples, but many other well-known companies also use CI as part of their software development process.
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