Continuous Integration: Unmanaged C++ on Visual Studio 2008

Question

I've spent 4 years developing C++ using Visual Studio 2008 for a commercial company; it's now time for me to upgrade my development process.

Here's the problem: I dont have a 1 button build automation. I also dont have a CI server that automatically builds when a commit happens, and emails me whether a build is broken or not. Worse we dont even have a single unit test!!

Can someone please point to me how I can get started?

I have looked at many many tools and I think I might go with:

Visual Build (for build automation) (Note: I also considered Final Builder)

Cruise (for CI server)

I also now am just starting to practice TDD...so I will want to automate my unit tests as well. I chose Google Test/Mock for their extensive documentation. (Cant go wrong with Google brand can I? =p)

Price is not the issue, I want what's best and easiest to get started.

Can people that use real CI/automation tool for unmanaged MSVC++ tell me their tools and how I can go about starting?

Our source control is Subversion.

Last point: I'm also considering project management/tracking tool that integrates right into VSTD ..and thinking about using OnTime. VSTS costs too much. I tried FogBugz, but I think it's too simple. Any others?

Answer 1

I would take some time to seriously consider TeamCity. We used CruiseControl.NET for a while and TeamCity completely demolishes it. Plus it has built-in plugins for Boost and CppUnit, so your unit testing will come for free.

Best of all, the tool is free for < 20 users and gives you three build agents.

I just finished implementing our C++ product at work and it was fairly simple. We did it with msbuild and basically use the msbuild task to compile the solution. Other targets can be used to copy files, run unit tests, etc.

Answer 2

we use subversion + cruisecontrol + wix to accomplich CI automated builds outputting one-click installers. this combo has worked very well for us. we've created out own site for admin of svn user groups and permissioning and added the web interface to cc to it. we have a sql server storing all the collected stats from svn and cc and use them for custom reports available on our site. we are looking to add other tools to the mix for checking various attributes of the code stored in svn. this combo has worked very well for us.

Answer 3

We use a combination of Boost.Build, NAnt, CPPUnit and either Cruise Control.NET or Hudson (we've used them both for various projects but are starting to prefer Hudson).

They are all good tools though we're considering replacing CPPUnit - the Google unit test system is pretty good from what I've seen.

If you're happy running on just Windows you can lose Boost.Build and just call out to Visual Studio from NAnt.

As for issue tracking/project management we settled on Vision Project after a long investigation. It's not well known (yet) but we've found it a very good fit in our environment. Fogbugz is great, a nice, clear interface but we came to the conclusion you did too; way too simple for our needs.

Although the .NET world is spoilt for these kinds of tools Continuous Integration is still pretty easy to set up for C++! I wouldn't think of starting a non-trivial project without putting these systems in place.

Answer 4

The last time I worked on an unmanaged MSVC++ project (which was moderately sized I might add), we used FinalBuilder to do the automated build & versioning (and even executing PCLint and other profiling tools as well).

Having said that, if you're willing to invest the time, MSBuild (or nAnt perhaps?) can do everything you need - even for unmanaged solutions.

Which brings us to the trade-off: Tools like Visual Build Pro and Final Builder get you up and running quickly. If you want something which offers a greater range of customization, you'll probably be spending a decent amount of time learning and understanding it - i.e. MSBuild, CIFactory, nAnt etc are no cake walk.

So if price isn't an issue - is time an issue? If time is at a premium, I'd investigate the GUI driven tools, they'll get you to where you want to go quickly. If you know you're going to need to extend on the simple one button build + unit tests + deploy scenario (which happens a lot!) then decide if you can invest the time into the more complex tools like MSBuild?

Answer 5

At my company we use CruiseControl (http://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/). The Java version, not .NET, to build our wxWidgets application on Windows and OS X. Working great for us so far.