Classification of automatic software build methods

TL;DR

This paper classifies various automatic software build methods, from build scripts to continuous integration, highlighting the diversity and automation in modern software development workflows.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive classification framework for automatic software build processes, encompassing build scripts and continuous integration techniques.

Findings

Build processes range from simple scripts to complex CI systems.

Classification helps in understanding and choosing appropriate build automation tools.

The framework covers various automation levels in software development.

Abstract

The process of creating working software from source code and other components (like libraries, database files, etc.) is called "software build". Apart from linking and compiling, it can include other steps like automated testing, static code analysis, documentation generation, deployment and other. All that steps can be automated using a build description of some sort (e.g. script). This article classifies the automatic software build processes beginning at build script and reaching the various types of continuous integration.