Steve Taylor

The key to successful build management in distributed environments is a foundational commitment to consistency, repeatability and portability. This is just as true for small, homogeneous development environments using in-house, scripted build systems, as it is for large, complex environments, where a new class of non-scripted, distributed build-management tools are now available. In small- and medium-sized environments, using a properly implemented in-house build system can mitigate many of the risks and challenges associated with builds. Additionally, with a few simple steps, the burdensome task of developing and maintaining build scripts can be significantly reduced, using build tools such as Make and Ant. Build Management Evolution Application builds have traditionally been managed using a rules-based program derived from Make, the world's oldest, best-known buil... (more)

Managing a Standardized Build Process Outside of the Eclipse IDE

Building objects in the Eclipse IDE is simple - it's a point-and-click solution. However, as applications built on the Eclipse platform mature the need for building outside of the IDE increases. This need can be driven by the development team that is striving to perform agile development techniques where builds are executed based on a file "check-in" action into an SCM tool. The need can also be driven by IT governance where a scheduled and audited production build is required. Moving from builds managed inside of the Eclipse platform to builds managed outside of the Eclipse plat... (more)