Effective Flex Development
Continuous Integration
by Peter Bell
Effective Flex development isn’t just about learning MXML, AS3 and Flash Builder. The most successful developers also use a number of other tools to manage the process of developing, maintaining and deploying their code. In this series we'll look at how Flex developers can take advantage of best practices being used in many other programming languages to develop better applications more consistently and efficiently.
In the first issue, we started off by looking at version control using subversion or git. The second issue focused on using Ant to automate and standardize your build process. The third issue looked at ways of improving the testing of your Flex apps. In this issue we review the first three topics and update them with changes in best practices over the last few months. Then we look at how you can take your development process to the next level by adding Continuous Integration to the mix.
It's All About Solving Problems
Too often I hear developers say "I know I should write tests or use version control, but I don't have the time." Usually my response is that you don’t have the time not to use them. In the first part of this article I want to do a quick review of the problems that version control, automated test suites and automated builds can solve so you can make an informed decision about when it makes sense to add each to your projects. I'm also going to provide some updated advice based on the changes that have occurred in best practices over the last few months. Finally, I'm going to show how Continuous Integration (CI) can be used to get even more value from your version control, automated tests and automated builds in a team development environment. I'll also provide information on configuring Hudson—a popular, open source CI server.
Read more of this article by buying Flex Authority Volume 2 Issue 2!