I have come up with a few questions you should ask yourself if your build is up to snuff.
- Does it take longer than 10 minutes to setup a new computer to build a project?
- Are there only a one or two people who know how to completely setup a new computer?
- Do builds sometimes fail on the integration server when they are passing on your development machine?
- Do you often make cross-repository commits?
- Does building a subproject force you to build several other subprojects?
- Does it take longer than 2 minutes to checkout a new project and build it successfully?
- Is it possible for other developers (or other external factors) to break your development build without checking in code?
- Can you use any IDE with your project?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, perhaps you should spend some time refactoring your build and/or project structure. A nasty build can be very frustrating for developers yet is an oft overlooked part of development.
