01 Sep 04
Light Up Your System Tray
If you just can’t convince the boss to buy lava lamps, or your team is dislocated and can’t share a visual monitoring device, then you need another visual way to monitor your build. Here’s a script that puts a red or green icon in your system tray.more...
31 Aug 04
Oozing Confidence
Alberto Savoia tells us how an April Fool’s Day joke turned into a valuable feedback tool for this team.more...
20 Aug 04
CVS Loginfo to RSS
A simple Ruby script converts CVS commit information into a convenient RSS feed.more...
13 Aug 04
Letting CVS Pull The Trigger
CVS exposes two "hooks" during the commit process that make triggered automation a breeze. This how-to walks you through a quick example of writing callback programs and registering them with CVS so that automation happens behind the scenes every time you commit changes.more...
07 Aug 04
Listening To Complex Systems
Pragmatic Programming relies on feedback, but it can be difficult to monitor in complex environments (e.g., fighter pilots, network administrators, software developers). A sonic ecology can leverage peripheral hearing to provide information-rich monitoring without distracting you.more...
29 Jul 04
Staking Out File Changes
Want your computer to automatically run a command whenever a file changes? No problem. Michael McCracken got tired of running his unit tests when his source files changed, so he wrote the stakeout program. Inspired by that work, I wrote a quickie Ruby script that keeps an eye on files for you.more...
21 Jul 04
Pragmatic Project Automation Template
Create your very own pragmatic project—directory structure, Ant build file, CruiseControl configuration files, etc.—using the Pragmatic Project Automation template. This Megg template will get you up and running in no time.more...
13 Jul 04
What's Your SMS Email Address?
Want to sneak out of the office for an afternoon at the beach, but you need to know if a scheduled build fails or an application crashes? No problem. Here’s how to find your cell phone or pager’s SMS email address to plug in to the examples in the book.more...
13 Jul 04
Pragmatic Project Automation Excerpts Available
Pragmatic Project Automation has gone to the printers! It will be available for purchase on or about July 19th. But there’s no need to delay getting started. Three chapter excerpts are now available for download.more...
13 Jul 04
CruiseControl on a Large Scale
The CruiseControl continuous build framework can scale from the 2-person team just getting started to the 800-person team with millions of lines of Java code under their belts. Jared Richardson contributed this success story and an inside look at how CruiseControl was tailored for a very large project.more...
13 Jul 04
Suggesting Content
Got project automation? Help your fellow programmers get off the treadmill by submitting your automation news, story, tool, tip, or trick.more...
13 Jul 04
Masthead
What’s PragmaticAutomation.com all about? It’s a site dedicated to all things related to automating the dull, boring, tedious, and repetitive chores on your software project. The mission is simple: to free up your time to do more worthwhile—and challenging—stuff, such as writing quality code.more...
