We are using the term Continuous Integration, a term used as one of the practices of XP (Extreme Programming). However we recognize that the practice has been around for a long time and is used by plenty of folks that would never consider XP for their work. We've been using XP as a touchstone in our software development process and that influences a lot of our terminology and practices. However you can use continuous integration without using any other parts of XP - indeed we think it's an essential part of any competent software development activity.

There are several parts to making an automated daily build work.

• Keep a single place where all the source code lives and where anyone can obtain the current sources from (and previous versions)
• Automate the build process so that anyone can use a single command to build the system from the sources
• Automate the testing so that you can run a good suite of tests on the system at any time with a single command
• Make sure anyone can get a current executable which you are confident is the best executable so far.

All of this takes a certain amount of discipline. We've found that it takes a lot of energy to introduce it into a project. We've also found that once installed, it doesn't take too much effort to keep it up.