Continuous Integration in Agile Software Development

Traditional software development techniques don't dictate how frequently or regularly you integrate all of the sources on a project. Consequently, a team dependably needed to struggle with a lot of complications and obstacles during the time spent for application development. Finding an escape from such struggle had always the second priority among companies while concentrating on quality applications remained the first. Nowadays, we observe every company claims to be Agile. If you are not agile, it turns out to be a mammoth task to add new functionalities. Thus, corporations and new businesses turn towards agile methodologies and begin using CI to accomplish agility in software development. However, incorporating agile in development process seems to ensure smooth integration, however, in reality, it is a challenge to change all the processes they have established and change the mindset in the large companies. As the world is moving fast, it's impractical to keep away from agile in software development. But here issue emerges.

Each company adopted Agile yet comprehended it differently. In agile, you must do TDD and CI. The core of Agile methodology in software development is a constant, iterative and incremental evolution. By following processes, software developers stayed focused regardless of the changing circumstances. This allows developers adapt to them, simultaneously assure rapid delivery of value. Why? Because Agile ensures fast feedback, adaptability, a contribution of the group, continuous improvement and delivery of high-quality results.  

What is Continuous Integration and why is it required?

Developers spend a lot of time in writing code to ensure task works perfectly, but later, when they integrate that code with the rest of application, unexpected results are encountered. To escape such situations, continuation integration turned out to be truly necessary. Continuous integration is necessary for software development. CI helps developers stepping over each other code and to prevent integration problems. CI works with other best practices like configuration management, compilation, software build, deployment, and testing which make single automated and repeatable process. Continuous integration helps software development teams be truly agile and adapt to rapid business changes, guaranteeing that software being worked on is on consistent match up.

At the end, CI ensures that the code works and is integrated correctly; component parts work together. Furthermore, regardless of the possibility that something doesn't incorporate or something doesn't work, it's immediately discovered. The CI rule states that software developers never leave anything integrated towards the day's end. It is very important! The build should never spend the night in a broken state. Besides, whoever breaks the build at check-in has to fix it again.

CI & TDD

Evaluation of work has a big part to play in improvement. In application development where finding problems quickly, instance fix and result-driven feedback are needed at the early stage, Test-Driven Development fills this gap as another agile method. With TDD, it is easy to design test, unit test and then build functionality until the code passes the test. The new addition that is made to the code, its test can be added to the suite of tests that are run when you build the integrated work. The following processes would not break the existing code. And developers who “break the build” can be notified quickly to fix the problem in the early stage.

Practicing continuous integration with test-driven development puts more people under the agile umbrella since it enhances agile methods in terms of more efficiency. TDD together with CI offers you rapid feedback that is a significant element in agile methodology. TDD and CI together simplify and speed up the process of developing new software, allowing the launch of a new scalable product quickly with a solid MVP.

Benefits of CI

Now, let’s look at CI more deeply to see key advantages it gives to the agile software development teams.

Reduce Risks - Frequent integration of code decreases the danger of overspending money on redoing work. Incorporating work every now and then implies there is a less gap between the current state of the application and the state of the application as the developer has it.

Find Issues Quickly - Continuous Integration followed by continuous tests and inspections enable developers to address problems immediately. It cautions the software development team when it does mistakes in order to avoid having a major issue.

Automating Processes - Implementing CI secures a great deal of time which is often spent on repetitive manual processes, which took a lot of time.

Quality Assurance - It is possible to release deployable software at any time with the help of Continuous Integration. This renders a significant advantage to the client since those ventures that don't take after this technique ordinarily encounter delayed the release. Additionally, CI encourages software team to forget about the issue of having a release cycle with unforeseen issues which arise from deployment. 

Confidence In Quality Software - With every project, programmers know that tests run against the software in order to verify behaviors, that product coding standards are being clung to, and that the outcome is a practically testable item. 

Transparency Across Your Team - The results of tests should be displayed on the build pipeline. If a build passes, that increases the confidence of the group. However, if it fails, programmers can easily ask his team members enable him to figure out what may have turned out wrong. Testing should be a transparent process among team members.

Finishing note

Thus we can conclude that Agile transforms software development, makes it easier, scalable, flexible and faster only if developers practice TDD and CI simultaneously. It comes as a safety net that allows finding error quickly, fix them and build working software as fast as possible. At the point when software teams apply CI, they are not hesitant to include new functionalities and break existing code. They understand that by doing that, they are considerably more effective than different groups, an agile team is one that can get feedback and respond to changing conditions quickly. CI increases adaptability, flexibility, scalability, maintainability and quality possible.

As for the business, there are many benefits of continuous integration; bring products to market faster, respond better to evolving necessities, small frequent iterations, steady evolution, and so on. This makes a scalable and quality item for the client, which is the commerce of nimbleness.