Andrew Glover

As far as tools go, check out DbUnit-- this framework facilitates database seeding (via XML files). With it, you can write tests that assume a known data structure and model. Of course, if your database model changes often, you'll run into issues associated with managing XML files...

Right on-- CI is a process and not a tool. While you can certainly facilitate CI in a manual manner, I tend to prefer automation (especially for assembling software, where the process proscribes compilation, testing, inspection, deployment, etc).

Jeff- check out parallel-junit-- it is a slick library that facilitates running JUnit tests in a threaded manner. It follows the TestSuite paradigm and is quite simple. We've seen dramatic decreases in testing times associated with builds by using this library. Threading tests does introduce issues, especially if your tests are database-centric; plus, you'll need a rather large suite of tests to overcome the cost of creating and managing threads.

I take it, Gian, that you don't want to run tests that rely on a database as they are slow? If you can segregate these tests (one easy way to figure out which tests require a database is to run all your tests without a database running-- those that fail are most likely dependent on it) then create a new Ant target that only runs these tests. I'd then schedule a build to run at some interval that includes executing this particular target (say named component-test).

Does the property file's data change from deployment to deployment (i.e. if you deploy to environment A today with property file X does a deployment to A tomorrow mean X changes again)?

If those 5 projects produce jars and you have some automated smoke tests, you could certainly use a CI process to logically build each project on some scheduled basis, deploy the related assets and run a series of tests to verify things are ok. You could do this more frequently depending on how big these projects are as well.

Bamboo (a commercial CI server) has a plug-in that supports Clover and since Atlassian acquired Cenqua (the makers of Clover) I imagine that integration will become quite compelling. Also, Hudson, which is open source, has a Clover plug-in.
[ August 28, 2007: Message edited by: Andrew Glover ]

As the co-author of an upcoming book entitled Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk and a frequent No Fluff Just Stuff speaker, Paul Duvall is well versed on development infrastructure best practices. In this interview, he explains what Continuous Integration is, some its various implementations, and where CI is headed.

Read the interview.

There probably aren't too many people in the Java world who haven't heard of Groovy. And for those that have taken a closer look at Groovy, they are probably familiar with the name Guillaume Laforge. As the defacto Guru of Groovy, Guillaume has guided the project through the ambitious JSR migration as well as setting the tone and the climate for the Groovy team.

Read on as Guillaume shares his experiences as Groovy's governor, his thoughts on Groovy's future and why you should consider giving it a spin.

Read the interview here: http://www.vanwardtechnologies.com/glaforge01.php

Tom Copeland, the lead developer of the popular Java open source project PMD and the Ruby language's increasingly popular RubyForge site was recently interviewed. PMD performs static analysis on code and reports on various violations (such as high cyclomatic complexity and overcomplicated expressions) and has been dubbed one of Software Development Magazine's "Open Source Projects to Watch" in 2004.

Read the interview: http://www.vanwardtechnologies.com/tomcopeland01.php

Curious about the new testing framework on the block: TestNG? Check out this short demo which shows how quickly one can create fully automated tests without introducing new dependencies or code extensions.

http://www.vanwardtechnologies.com/startingwithtestng.php

You may find this series interesting for drawing your own comparison of those languages:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/views/java/libraryview.jsp?search_by=alt.lang.jre:

This series too:

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-04-2002/jw-0405-scripts.html

if you'd like to test your EJB code, you need to use Jython, not Python. With Jython you can use regular java objects. Jython can use Python code- hence the pyunit reference.

We have used and are using Maven on multiple projects with developers in multiple locations and we are quite impressed.
It takes a little learning to get used to jelly, etc, but once you get it, you are hooked. I think Ant is great, but I don't ever plan on using it again. Take the leap and use maven, you won't look back.

TogetherSoft�s product will reverse engineer code as will Rational�s. You could download Eclipse and one of the free UML tools too. I use Omondo�s product in Eclipse for adequate class diagrams. See http://www.eclipseuml.com/