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Is integrating code checking it into a software configuration management repository? (This link seems to say so: Continuous Integration vs. Continuous Delivery vs. Continuous Deployment)

Martin Fowler referred to integrating code against a "controlled source code repository." (Taken from this page: http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html)

Therefore a manual integration of code would be checking code into Subversion or Git. I hear about continuous integration. But I never hear about manual integration.

It is well known that Jenkins is described as a CI tool. But can Jenkins check code into a repository? I know it can copy code from such a repository. Checking code into a repository is always integration, right? I don't think checking code out is necessarily integration. Can someone explain how Jenkins is an integration tool based on the apparent definition of integration as checking code into a code repository?

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Propulsion
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1 Answers1

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Integration (manual or otherwise) is the process of merging code changes from two or more developers into a single code repository. Code check-in may or may not involve integration; if only one person checks in changes, and all other developers get the new changes before they make changes of their own, then no integration is necessary.

The purpose of Continuous Integration is to insure that such changes are merged in a timely manner to reduce conflicts and avoid big integration problems.

Robert Harvey
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  • Integration has expanded a lot since the original definitions. When applications have more than one requisite project, then integration would include continually building the application from all the projects. Integrating includes continually running the applications with various configurations (against the CI database, the shared dev database, the in-memory unit test database...), all of which could be said to be application integration. And there are many more types of integration that just don't fit into an SO comment... – Paul Hicks May 23 '15 at 00:11
  • This answer is about integration from a source control perspective, which is what the question is about. – Robert Harvey May 23 '15 at 00:15
  • @PaulHicks but they would fit beautifully here: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/85819/devops?referrer=4Ddj-Bk6x80yR6VmaIeuwQ2 – guido May 23 '15 at 00:18