Microsoft's Build Lab
July 28th, 2008
(From The Build Master )
Because a build lab tends to have some downtime while the build team waits for compiles, links, and tests to finish, it should take advantage of these slow times to work on improvements to the build process. After the lab tests the improvements and confirms they are ready for primetime, it rolls out the changes. One way to deploy a new build process after a shipping cycle is to send a memo to the whole team pointing to an internal Web site that has directions on the new process that the Central Build Team will be using in future product builds.
Today, the Windows build lab has its own development team working on writing and maintaining new and old project tools. The development team also works on deploying new build processes. Conversely, of the more than 200 customers I’ve spoken to, only one or two of them have developers working in a build team.
In 1991, Windows NT had only a few hundred thousand lines of code, unlike the more than 40 million lines of code that Windows XP has today. Even in the early stages of developing Windows NT, Microsoft recognized the importance of a good build process.
