Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are essential practices in modern software development. They help to ensure that changes made to the codebase are built, tested, and deployed in a controlled and automated manner. This helps to reduce the risk of errors, conflicts, and bugs creeping into the codebase, while also allowing developers to focus on writing code rather than manual processes.
CI refers to the process of automatically building and testing code changes as they are made to the codebase. This ensures that issues are caught early in the development process, before they can cause bigger problems. CD takes this a step further by automating the deployment process, allowing developers to quickly and easily release changes to production environments.
While CI/CD pipelines are often managed by release teams or DevOps engineers, it's important for developers to have a good understanding of how they work. This includes being able to build and configure pipelines, as well as understanding the various tools and technologies used in the process.
To become a mid-level developer, it's not necessary to have expertise in building CI/CD pipelines, but it's important to understand their purpose and benefits. It's also helpful to have experience in building and testing code, as well as knowledge of the various tools and technologies used in the process.
In addition to CI/CD, becoming a power user of your editor is another important skill for developers. Editors are a fundamental tool for writing code, and being able to use them efficiently can save you a lot of time and frustration.
There are many plugins and tools available for popular editors like VS Code, Sublime, and Atom that can help to streamline your workflow and improve productivity. For example, code formatters can help to ensure that your code is consistently formatted, while autocomplete can speed up the process of writing code.
The key is to find the right balance between customization and efficiency. Spending too much time tweaking your editor can be counterproductive, but taking the time to set up useful plugins and tools can pay off in the long run. Ultimately, the goal is to make your editor work for you, so that you can focus on writing code and solving business problems.
When it comes to continuous integration, what to include largely depends on the size of your team and the complexity of your project. For small teams, the focus is often on ensuring that the codebase remains functional and that changes can be merged without causing conflicts. Some examples of things that make sense to include in CI for small teams are:
- Running automated tests: This ensures that any changes made to the codebase don't break existing functionality.
- Code quality checks: This helps to catch any issues with code quality early on, before they cause problems down the line.
- Building and packaging the application: This ensures that the application can be built and deployed easily, without requiring manual intervention.
- Static code analysis: This helps to catch potential issues with the codebase that might not be caught by automated tests.
For larger teams, the focus shifts to ensuring that the development process is well-coordinated and that the different components of the application can be integrated smoothly. Some examples of things that make sense to include in CI for larger teams are:
- Code coverage analysis: This helps to ensure that tests are covering all of the codebase, and that any new functionality is being tested adequately.
- Deployment to multiple environments: This ensures that the application can be deployed to multiple environments (such as staging and production) easily and reliably.
- Performance testing: This helps to catch any potential performance issues early on, before they become a problem in production.
- Integration testing: This helps to ensure that different components of the application can be integrated smoothly, and that changes made by one team don't cause problems for another team.
This isn't to say that the practices for small teams don't apply to large teams. The highlight is that priorities and focus shift depending on team size.
Overall, the goal of continuous integration is to catch issues early on in the development process, so that they can be fixed before they become a bigger problem. By including the right things in your CI process, you can ensure that your development process is smooth and efficient, whether you're working on a small or large team. You don't have to become an expert immediately, but you need to know your way arround these tools.