Continuous Integration

Continuous Code Reviews using Non-Blocking Reviews - a case study

May 2, 2023 • 6 min


The usual way to achieve fast Continuous Code Reviews is through Pair Programming or Ensemble Programming. In this article, I will share a less common approach to Continuous Code Reviews using Non-Blocking Reviews.

Can the Pull Request Replace Agree As a Team to Never Break the Build

Mar 12, 2023 • 5 min


Recently, as a reaction to the Practices that make Continuous Integration, someone suggested on LinkedIn the Pull Request based approach without formal reviews could supersede Agree as a Team to Never Break the Build. The benefit would be it removes the need to rely on team agreements to avoid broken builds. Now they would be guaranteed by the Pull Request build. As attractive as this looks, it ignores everything that emanates from Agree as a Team to Never Break the Build.

The Practices That Make Continuous Integration - Building for Continuous Integration

Sep 28, 2022 • 16 min


In part 1 - Team Working for Continuous Integration we looked into the team practices that make Continuous Integration. In part 2 - Coding for Continuous Integration we explored the engineering practices for Continuous Integration. In this last part, we investigate the required practices for a team to succeed with Continuous Integration, i.e. which are the building practices and how to improve builds to support the team practices - especially Agree as a Team to Never Break the Build - and the coding practices - in particular Make Changes in Small Increments and Commit Frequently.

The Practices That Make Continuous Integration - Coding for Continuous Integration

Sep 25, 2022 • 16 min


In part 1 - Team Working for Continuous Integration we looked at all the necessary practices to achieve team work around Continuous Integration. Now, we investigate the critical engineering practices individuals, pairs or ensembles should adopt to attain Continuous Integration as a team.

The Practices That Make Continuous Integration - Team Working for Continuous Integration

Sep 17, 2022 • 10 min


This first part of this series investigates the practices that enable teamwork that in turn enable Continuous Integration. Continuous Integration is a Team Practice. We achieve it as a team and not as a set of individuals. Most of the time, practices are defined for individuals. When most team members apply them, the team does well. However, with Continuous Integration, most team members have to implement other practices before the team can say they practice Continuous Integration.

The Practices That Make Continuous Integration

Aug 26, 2022 • 0 min


Continuous Integration is by itself already a practice. It is one of the most critical to adopt to enable the fast flow of work through the value stream. However, many teams believe Continuous Integration is just a tooling problem, to then say they practice Continuous Integration.

The Practices That Make Continuous Integration

Jun 14, 2022 • 2 min


Honestly, it feels a bit awkward to still write about Continuous Integration. It has been over 20 years since Kent Beck introduced Continuous Integration in his book Extreme Programming Explained. But, when looking around me, I realise teams and organisations still struggle with adopting Continuous Integration.

On the Evilness of Feature Branching - How To Avoid The Problems?

Jun 14, 2022 • 5 min


In part 4 of this series - The Problems I dived deep into the problems introduced by feature branching. But, what can we do about this? How can we avoid the problems introduced by feature branching altogether?

On the Evilness of Feature Branching - The Problems

May 30, 2022 • 23 min


In part 2 of this series - Why do Teams use Feature Branches? - and part 3 - But Compliance!? I went into all the possible reasons teams mention themselves to why they use feature branches. This time I want to go deeper into the problems introduced by the use of feature branches.

On the Evilness of Feature Branching - But Compliance

Feb 22, 2022 • 11 min


In part 2 of this series - Why do Teams use Feature Branches? - I examined all the possible reasons teams mention for why they use feature branches. There was, however, one reason, I did not mention that people referenced as the ultimate reason: “We use feature branches and pull requests to comply with regulations”. I would like to explore this and show there are other options to comply that do not have the same drawbacks.

Feature Branches and Toggles in a post-GitHub World

Dec 13, 2021 • 26 min


Why I got interested in micro services? Because from my early days at ThoughtWorks was actually helping people ship software more quickly. I spent lots of time looking at Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, cloud automation, infrastructure automation, automated tests, and all these sort of things. And realise that actually it was the architecture of these systems that made it hard to ship software more quickly.

On the Evilness of Feature Branching - Why do Teams use Feature Branches

Oct 25, 2021 • 18 min


In part 1 of this series - a Tale of Two Teams - I introduced two quite different teams. One novice team practising trunk-based development, the other experienced but being used by GitFlow. Now I would like to explore why teams use feature branches. What are their reasons? What problems are they trying to solve with long-running branches?

On the Evilness of Feature Branching - A Tale of Two Teams

Jul 14, 2021 • 7 min


On the experience of working with two totally different teams: one novice practising trunk-based development, the other very experienced being used by GitFlow.

On the Evilness of Feature Branching

Apr 26, 2021 • 0 min


Branch creation became very easy with the advent of Distributed Version Control Systems. However, it comes at an unquestionable cost. Long living branches break the flow of the IT delivery process, impacting both stability and throughput.

Continuous Integration is Not a Tooling Problem

Mar 23, 2020 • 3 min


There is this commonly accepted, hard-grained belief in the software industry. By dropping a build server in a team, they get Continuous Integration magically for free. This belief is further incentivised by the marketing of build server vendors.

Feature Branching is Evil

Oct 29, 2016 • 0 min


Feature branching is again gaining in popularity due to the rise of distributed version control systems. Although branch creation has become very easy, it comes with a certain cost. Long living branches break the flow of the software delivery process, impacting throughput and stability.