Coding Horror: The F5 Key Is Not a Build Process
Jul 30
As a developer of many years, I have to (de facto) love – I mean with less-than 3 style love — the kind you and your JR high school crush had for each other, Coding Horror.
Love does not mean I have to agree. This is from an old article that I read back the day it was published (as I have been doing for almost 5 years now).
If your “build process” is the F5 key, you have a problem. If you think this sounds ridiculous– who would possibly use their IDE as a substitute for a proper build process? — then I humbly suggest that you haven’t worked much in the mainstream corporate development world. The very idea of a build script outside the IDE is alien to most of these teams.
My problem with this is that most people in a mainstream corporate development world USE the IDE to build. I know because I have been there in MULTIPLE jobs. I have been a rookie, and I have been a lead, that doesn’t stop me from using the IDE to build and publish. Now as the owner of my own company why would I want to waste money on something that comes for free out of the box?
I understand central build system, scheduled build processes, but I haven’t ever needed them.
Whether I was in a team of 10 or a team of one hundred, we would each check our code in, get latest and F5.
When I have a developer building an application for me, I don’t want to waste my time or theirs (billable) on an infrastructure that doesn’t get me a finished product any faster.
