Last Thursday evening we had a terrific turnout for our first “war stories” event. With almost 25 attendees, including the co-founder of CruiseControl, the affair went remarkably well.

The majority in attendance were local technical folks with the notable exception of Paul Julius who flew in from South Dakota (he also was the lucky winner of an iPod Nano!).

After mingling over fine wines (provided by Savoy-Lee) and cheese, we dove right into discussing the ins and outs of Continuous Integration and its importance as it ensures the health of software through running a build with every change. Interesting to note, there was no shortage of people eager to talk and share their successes and challenges. One message that resonated throughout the night - “if Continuous Integration is so good, why doesn’t every team use it.”

Additionally, Paul Duvall (CTO, Stelligent) presented a short demo of how to best use CruiseControl in a team environment. Later, Andy Glover (President, Stelligent) presented a similar demo of Hudson (open source CI server).

With a scheduled event end of 7:00 PM the conversation did not cease with the timeline…by 8:30 there were still a few hardcore enthusiasts deeply in the weeds of the CI subject.

Many thanks to everyone for coming and stay tuned for details for our next event!