- they can deal with appropriate levels of detail whatever the technology that is thrown at them. They understand the important principles in terms of automation, repeatability and reliability and can adapt these to the job at hand. The intricacies of dependency calculations and parallel building techniques hold no fear for them.
- Politically aware (the sub-species of Machiavellian Builders) - they seek to influence decisions as to which languages and technologies are used, and ensure that the requirements of building and releasing are designed in from the outset.
Conclusion
This academic research on the rise of Renaissance Builder might appear to be wishful thinking, but is strongly supported by the increasing frequency of occurent of the title “build engineer” in job postings. We can’t think why this prosaic title was chosen in place of “Renaissance Builder”, but bow to the inevitable and just seek to encourage further evolution.
References
- Building for Success , CM Journal, Apr 2005 (Vol 4. No. 4), by Robert Cowham, Steve Berczuk and Brad Appleton
- The Importance of Building Earnestly , CM Journal, Feb 2005 (Vol 4. No. 2), by Steve Berczuk, Robert Cowham and Brad Appleton
- The Samba Build Farm - interesting example of "farming it out"
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About the author
Robert Cowham has long been interested in software configuration management while retaining the attitude of a generalist with experience and skills in many aspects of software development. A regular presenter at conferences, he authored the Agile SCM column within the CM Journal together with Brad Appleton and Steve Berczuk. His day job is as Services Director for Square Mile Systems whose main focus is on skills and techniques for infrastructure configuration management and DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) - applying configuration management principles to hardware documentation and implementation as well as mapping ITIL services to the underlying layers.
About the author
Brad Appleton is a software CM/ALM solution architect and lean/agile development champion at a large telecommunications company. Currently he helps projects and teams adopt and apply lean/agile development and CM/ALM practices and tools. He is coauthor of the bookSoftware Configuration Management Patterns, a columnist in The CM Journal and The Agile Journal at CMCrossroads.com, and a former section editor for The C++ Report. You can read Brad's blog at blog.bradapp.net.
About the author
Steve Berczuk is an engineer and ScrumMaster at Humedica where he's helping to build next-generation SaaS-based clinical informatics applications. The author of Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration, he is a recognized expert in software configuration management and agile software development. Steve is passionate about helping teams work effectively to produce quality software. He has an M.S. in operations research from Stanford University and an S.B. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and is a certified, practicing ScrumMaster. Contact Steve at steve@berczuk.com or visit berczuk.com and follow his blog at blog.berczuk.com.
