Continuous Integration (CI) Needs and Wishes for Developers of Proprietary Code
Continuous Integration (CI) Needs and Wishes for Developers of Proprietary Code Michael Hilton, Nicholas Nelson, Danny Dig Timothy Tunnell, Darko Marinov School of EECS, Oregon State University CS Department, University of Illinois {hiltonm,nelsonni,digd}@oregonstate.edu {tunnell2,marinov}@illinois.edu Abstract—Continuous integration (CI) systems automate the Open-source projects are often considered fundamentally dif- compilation, building, and testing of software. Despite CI being ferent from proprietary-code projects [6]. Differences between one of the most widely used processes in software engineering, open-source and proprietary-code projects include that open- we do not know what motivates developers to use CI, and what barriers and unmet needs they face. Without such knowledge source projects foster more creativity [7], have fewer defects [7], developers make easily avoidable errors, managers reduce the and assign work differently [8]. However, similarities have also productivity of developers by making misinformed decisions, tool been found, including how GitHub is used [9], overall project builders invest in the wrong direction, and researchers miss many complexity [7], and amount of modularity [7]. opportunities for improving the software engineering practice. There are still many gaps in our knowledge about why Given the large fraction of proprietary code development, un- derstanding how proprietary developers are using CI is vital to developers use CI, and what barriers they face, especially for improving it. projects of proprietary code. What motivates developers to use We present the first study of how CI is used in the proprietary CI? What are the barriers that developers face when using development of software. We conduct 16 semi-structured inter- CI? What needs do developers have that are unmet by their views with developers from different industries and development current CI system(s)? Do proprietary developers have the same scale.
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