Revolution Software's Bruno Sonnino is a developer, author, consultant and trainer. Bruno develops utilities for PCMag, which requires many different builds and deployment configurations. Building and deploying a number of different projects proved to be cumbersome and time consuming for Bruno so he turned to Automated Build Studio to automate this process.

Overview

Bruno's main problem was not the build complexity itself, but the number of projects that have to be built. "I develop utilities for PCMag and I have about 15 different utilities to build. These utilities have periodic updates and must be distributed in two different ways: as an install file and an update file. Another complication is that sometimes I have to release a debug version for beta-testers and a release version for download/update at the same time. Plus, all utilities have a help file and must be versioned," said Bruno.

Choosing Automated Build Studio

Bruno has used AutomatedQA tools since MemProof, developed by Atanas Stoyanov. "I have been a Delphi user since 1995, and try to follow what's new, interesting and proven for Delphi development," said Bruno.

Deployment

The install file is deployed as an executable for users that have never downloaded the utility. The update file is a password protected zip file and is used by the update routine that is built into the utilities. The update routine uses a .dll file, which is a different project and must be rebuilt when there is an update. It consists of one executable and a .dll file that must be linked together.

Bruno said, "All of these variables make building projects manually a cumbersome task that is prone to errors. It’s easy to add a debug main executable into a release install file or add an out of date update .dll file to the final install. Having automated builds assures that all builds are done right and they can be easily created with one button click."

The Build Process

"A usual project has several steps. For example, SurfSpeed, a surfing speed meter utility, has a main executable, a help file and an update .dll file. The debug version uses MadExcept exception logging to help me find errors and some conditional directives, including debug options that are checked when compiling. The release version doesn’t use MadExcept and doesn’t have debug info," said Bruno.

"The update file is another project, consisting of one executable and a .dll compressed with UPX and built together in the .dll file."

"To build SurfSpeed, I must compile the main project with the right options, make sure the help file and the .dll are up to date and build them if they are not, and then pack it all in both install packages."

Using Automated Build Studio

Bruno said, "By using Automated Build Studio, I am assured that I am releasing the right files every time and that all files are up to date and the options are right for the release. Now, I am always sure that steps are not skipped. When a utility has thousands of downloads, there is no better way to assure that they are correct."

Ease of Use

"It only takes one button click to build a project, there is no need to go to the compiler, check the options, and run a bunch of different programs to create a build. Also, I really liked the ease of use for multiple configurations of builds. You can create a base project and configure the options for multiple build types or SKUs," said Bruno.

Recommending Automated Build Studio

Bruno said, "Automated Build Studio is very easy to use and I highly recommend it if you have a complex build process or have a lot of different product versions to release, it really improves your build and deployment quality."