IBM Rational® ClearCase®, Ant, and CruiseControl: The Java™ Developer's Guide to Accelerating and Automating the Build Process [Paperback]

Kevin A. Lee (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321356993 | ISBN-13: 978-0321356994 | Publication Date: June 3, 2006 | Edition: 1

Optimize your entire Java build and release process with ClearCaseA (R), Ant, and CruiseControl Better builds mean better software. Effective, regular build processes accelerate development and improve quality, helping you identify small problems early, before they grow complex and costly to fix. Now, there's a step-by-step guide to creating Java build processes that are right for your organization. Leading build and release management expert Kevin Lee introduces best practices for integrating and using three exceptionally powerful and recognized industry standard tools: IBM RationalA (R) ClearCase software configuration management system, the open source Ant build tool, and CruiseControl for automating continuous builds. No previous build experience is necessary: Lee thoroughly explains everything from configuring SCM environments and defining build scripts through to release packaging and deployment. He offers solutions and techniques for both Base ClearCase and Unified Change Management (UCM)-IBM Rational's best practice Software Configuration Management usage model. Key techniques are presented in real-world context, through a full-fledged three-tier application case study.Whether you are a software developer, manager, or integrator, this book will help you create better builds-and reap the benefits in efficiency, traceability, quality, and speed. Coverage includes A * Ensuring that every build you create is complete, consistent, and reproducible A * Configuring a ClearCase-controlled environment to support your development organization's build and release process A * Installing Ant and configuring it to build all of your project assets A * Integrating Ant with ClearCase and effectively using them together A * Installing CruiseControl and configuring it to schedule and automate different types of builds A * Integrating CruiseControl with ClearCase to schedule builds and automate baselines and reports A * Creating custom baseline and change request reports A * Setting up automatic notification whenever build problems arise A * Creating and packaging releasable, traceable builds with ClearCase and ClearQuestaA A

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Optimize your entire Java build and release process with ClearCase^®, Ant, and CruiseControl

Better builds mean better software. Effective, regular build processes accelerate development and improve quality, helping you identify small problems early, before they grow complex and costly to fix. Now, there’s a step-by-step guide to creating Java build processes that are right for your organization. Leading build and release management expert Kevin Lee introduces best practices for integrating and using three exceptionally powerful and recognized industry standard tools: IBM Rational® ClearCase software configuration management system, the open source Ant build tool, and CruiseControl for automating continuous builds.

 

No previous build experience is necessary: Lee thoroughly explains everything from configuring SCM environments and defining build scripts through to release packaging and deployment. He offers solutions and techniques for both Base ClearCase and Unified Change Management (UCM)–IBM Rational’s best practice Software Configuration Management usage model. Key techniques are presented in real-world context, through a full-fledged three-tier application case study.

 

Whether you are a software developer, manager, or integrator, this book will help you create better builds–and reap the benefits in efficiency, traceability, quality, and speed.

 

Coverage includes

·     Ensuring that every build you create is complete, consistent, and reproducible

·     Configuring a ClearCase-controlled environment to support your development organization’s build and release process

·     Installing Ant and configuring it to build all of your project assets

·     Integrating Ant with ClearCase and effectively using them together

·     Installing CruiseControl and configuring it to schedule and automate different types of builds

·     Integrating CruiseControl with ClearCase to schedule builds and automate baselines and reports

·     Creating custom baseline and change request reports

·     Setting up automatic notification whenever build problems arise

·     Creating and packaging releasable, traceable builds with ClearCase and ClearQuest™

 

About the Author

Kevin A. Lee has more than a decade of experience in implementing software build and release management practices on projects of various sizes. He joined Rational Software, UK in 2000 as a technical field representative. Today he is still helping customers ensure successful deployment and adoption of the IBM Rational Software Development Platform. In addition to delivering presentations at IBM Rational user conferences worldwide and writing articles for IBM developerWorks, he maintains a Web site dedicated to build and release management (www.buildmeister.com). He also contributes to related open-source projects such as Apache Ant and CruiseControl. In his previous positions at large telecom organizations, he deployed the Rational Software Configuration Management (SCM) toolset on multisite enterprise projects. He holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of East Anglia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: IBM Press; 1 edition (June 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321356993
• ISBN-13: 978-0321356994
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #794,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars quick to get started with clearcase, ant & cruisecontrol, June 30, 2006

By 

Jeanne Boyarsky (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: IBM Rational® ClearCase®, Ant, and CruiseControl: The Java™ Developer's Guide to Accelerating and Automating the Build Process (Paperback)

"IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant and CruiseControl" walks the reader through setting up automated builds. It is useful if you are doing exactly what the book discusses. In particular, you should be using all three of these technologies and want to do standard builds.

The concepts were excellent. There was a strong emphasis on understanding the terminology. For examples, configuration management and build terms were clearly discussed. The roles involved were also described.

The author introduces code as constructs/idioms rather than as syntax. He calls these "best practices." I don't think of them as best practices, but the idioms are very useful in getting started quickly. Due to this approach, the book doesn't offer much instruction on customization.

The coverage of ClearCase was very thorough. The book includes both the Base ClearCase and ClearCase UCM. Ant and CruiseControl were covered enough to automate a standard J2EE build with ClearCase.

This book will save you a lot of time in getting an automated build working if you haven't used the technologies before. It supplements the materials available on the web nicely.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overall view of the build management process..., November 12, 2006

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: IBM Rational® ClearCase®, Ant, and CruiseControl: The Java™ Developer's Guide to Accelerating and Automating the Build Process (Paperback)

If you're a Java developer, you likely have (or should have) some sort of automated build process. IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl: The Java Developer's Guide to Accelerating and Automating the Build Process by Kevin A. Lee shows how this is done using these particular tools.

Contents:
Part 1 - Overview: Introduction to Software Build and Release Management
Part 2 - Environment: Tools of the Trade; Configuring Your SCM Environment
Part 3 - Definition: Defining Your Build and Release Scripts; Apache Ant Best Practices
Part 4 - Execution: Running Your Build Scripts; CruiseControl Best Practices
Part 5 - Reporting: Baseline and Change Request Reports; Build Reporting and Auditing
Part 6 - Release: The Art of Releasing; Release Packaging and Deployment
Part 7 - Conclusion: Putting It All Together
Glossary; Bibliography; Index

There are a multitude of tools out there that you can use to build your configuration management processes. This title uses the IBM Rational ClearCase tool as the source code repository, and Ant/CruiseControl to control the build process. It's not a definitive guide to any one of the software packages, but it's a very good blending of all three into a process that works well for making sure your software compiles and builds properly (and automatically). The concepts behind why build management is important are covered well, followed by detailed instructions on how to actually use the software. You could probably learn from this book if you had never dealt with Ant or anything else, but I get the feeling that some background in these areas would make the book a lot easier to understand. I could see this being a great book for someone who is switching from one repository tool (like Subversion) to ClearCase, and wants to know what they need to do to keep (or begin) their build management scripts.

Probably one of the better books out there on the overall process of automating your build process. If you haven't taken those steps to automate your builds, you really need to do something about that... :)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best practices are well documented., February 13, 2008

By 

Tarak Patel "purposeful" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: IBM Rational® ClearCase®, Ant, and CruiseControl: The Java™ Developer's Guide to Accelerating and Automating the Build Process (Paperback)

This is a straight-forward, to-the point reading. Version controlling approach and build processes are reflecting real-life situations. Code and processes are well documented.