Table of contents
Definition
Continuous Integration(CI) is the use of different processes and tools to smoothen out the software creation and release workflow.
When you have different team members working to create the same software solution it's easy for a lot of things to fall through the cracks which might prolong the development to release cycle.
Continues integration seeks to remove as much direct human integration by automating the workflow.
Use cases and Examples
By automating the workflow, different teams know exactly what to do to confirm the state of their work this then feeds into a system that decides when a piece of work is ready for use.
Every team member just needs to provide input to the automated workflow and the system decides what to do next.
In a software development workflow where several software engineers are working on the same source code [→] a CI process can help each team member know exactly what each person is working on without too much interaction, with set rules and systems in place completed parts of software will end up in the user's hands without the need for endless decision meetings.
This is because the rules that define software that is ready for release are defined ahead of time, therefore, streamlining the process and ensuring every little change that is ready is shipped out to the user as soon as possible.
Summary
As the software field grows, newer complexities are introduced each day and solutions like continuous integration are just one of the solutions to tame the complexity beast.
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