Single responsibility builds

When I joined my current project, the CI build server (CC.Net) was already in place. For the most part, things were in working order. One item I took exception to was the fact that every build copied files to the development server. The idea being that a developer can run tests to verify that all of the pieces are working correctly. For most of the team, however, this is instead used as a convenient way to code the UI without running the services locally. This makes sense.

The problem, however, comes in when a significant change is made to that code (as in the recent data access changes.) Much of the code still has bugs to work out, despite the fact that the code compiles. The way the build is set up, the copies to the server happen after the compile, regardless of the unit test results. The end result is that after the change, developers could no longer test against the server's build.

Ideally, the continuous build process would not touch the dev server files. Instead, a separate build is created to copy the files on demand (using a Force Build in CC.Net.) When the build is in a faulty state, UI developers can continue working off a known-good base, while others can iron out the bugs in the server code. Another option would be to fail the build if any unit tests fail, so the file copies aren't carried out. Of course, this assumes the tests normally pass.