Continuous Integration is simply a combination of tasks that you are likely to perform anyway during the development and release of a project. The difference, however, is that with continuous integration, you do it earlier and more frequently. Decreasing the time between automated builds allows you to view the development of the project over time rather than to look at a single snapshot of the code. It allows you to keep a finger on the pulse of your project and catch any problems early on.
We learned about some of the advantages of adding CI to your development process. First, configuring the CI process once will bring benefits throughout the project's lifetime. Second, CI encourages and practically requires best practices, such as unit testing, inline documentation, and coding standards.
We also learned about CruiseControl and phpUnderControl—two tools that when combined extend a mature CI server to support PHP and its cast of supporting players: phpDocumentor, PHPUnit, Phing, and...